Be Home By Midnight
by JadedNightingale2308
Summary: I was just a normal girl with a less than stellar life until suddenly I wasn't. Suddenly I'm my fanfiction character and maybe I never existed at all, and everything is screwed up. Who am I? Why am I even here? All I know is that the Doctor, who should be fictional and not real, is all I have left and he can help me figure this out. 10/OC possible eventual 11/OC
1. 1: Who I Used to Be

Hey guys! Hope everyone had a good holiday! For those of you who might have checked out my Fullmetal Alchemist fic, Puzzle Pieces (previously named Don't Look at Me Like That), I just want to say that I'm still working on that. But I had the killer urge recently, with season 8 and the 12th Doctor (who I love!) and the Christmas special, to write a new Doctor Who story. So here I am, and I'm really excited for this. I want to say thanks to Heycassbut for all her amazing help with this and for being basically my new best friend. You should check out her Doctor Who story, Chasing Cars, because her OC is adorable and it's just an all-around fantastic fic. Moving on! This fic will follow the show, and I have all the information about my OC listed on my profile, including her Face Claim and a picture of her Face Claim (or rather a link to it) and if I really feel like it, I might include Polyvore things and other stuff of what she's wearing. Also, I should mention that Fi, short for Felicity, is pronounced like Fee, not like Fie/Fye/I don't know. And… I think that's everything I wanted to say. Don't forget to review! Reviews keep me going and lets me know what you guys think of things and all that good stuff. So you should review. Yep.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Doctor Who, unfortunately for me because then I would be rich and I could be best buddies with David Tennant and Catherine Tate and we'd be bros and also I'm pretty sure I could do a better job than Moffat. I don't own any characters except for my OC's and the original portions of the plot of this story. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Who I Used to Be

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><p><em>"It is never too late to be what you might have been."<em>

_George Eliot_

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><p>Have you ever had one of those days where you just don't feel right? You're not sick and you're not hurt and there's logically no reason for you to feel like a giant ball of crap, but you do feel like a giant ball of crap and nothing you do can change it? One of those days where you want to do everything but then when you start to do something you had wanted to, you suddenly find that it suddenly sounds dull and unappealing? You feel sad and lonely, and lost. And you don't know why. All you know is that you just feel… wrong. Have you ever had one of those days? I have. Every single day of my life.<p>

My name was Felicity Brooks. Yes, that's right, past tense. As in that's not who I am anymore. She's a person who I used to be, or maybe never was. Maybe she never even existed. That sounded a lot less confusing in my head. You'll understand soon, I promise. No, I'm not dead. That's not what I mean. I'm just… different. I never was very good at explaining things. That hasn't changed. I suppose I should just show you, instead of trying to tell you. But listen closely, because this is my story. It's not really a good story so much as it's an interesting one, but it is _mine_. So pay attention.

~X~

"Any day now, Dad…" I sighed as I checked the time on my phone again. It was almost 9:30 at night and still there was no sign of my father. Not that him being home late was anything new, but every night I found myself hoping he'd be home at a decent time and the majority of those night I was disappointed. I looked up from my phone at the full plate of baked macaroni that sat on the other side of our small kitchen table and, deciding that two hours was long past the reheat point, stood to begin cleaning up. The dishes had been done an hour ago after I realized I would be eating alone and had my share of the mac and cheese so all that was left was to put a layer of aluminum foil over the plate and leave it in the microwave, ready to be warmed up whenever he walked in the door.

It wasn't like I was surprised that he was late once again. My father worked as a doctor, the surgeon kind, at the largest hospital in Albany. We had moved here from New York City five years ago when I was 12 and my parents had gotten a divorce. My father had decided he needed a change of scenery, and had gotten the hospital he'd worked at to transfer him to their sister hospital. Being a doctor was demanding work, though, and my father was determined that we would live the same kind of life that we had lived in New York City, even without my mother's income and even though I had told him time and time again that I was okay if we had to cut back on things, so he worked more hours than he probably should have been working. In conclusion, I never got to see him. Most nights he worked late, and even when he said he would be home early or on time it was still rare that he actually managed to do it. Being home by myself all the time also meant that dinner was my responsibility basically every night. He always told me not to worry about him, that he would get something to eat when he got home, but I always felt bad because that meant I was leaving him to scrounge for scraps in the fridge at 11 o'clock at night. So whenever I made dinner, I made enough for the two of us. The downside? I hated to cook. I wasn't good at it. The only kind of food making I could handle was baking. Don't ask me why, but whenever I cooked dinner it came out bland and tasteless or way too seasoned or some other sort of terrible. However, I could make really simple things like baked mac and cheese or spaghetti and meatballs. But who wants to eat that all the time? Well, I did, but that was beside the point.

The notification sound on my phone went off just as I finished putting his plate in the microwave. It was a text from my father. "_Sorry, sweetie, but it looks like I'll be stuck here late. Won't be home until at least 11. I'll see you in the morning. Love you, Fi."_ Like I said, I wasn't surprised. It just… It sucked. I never got to see my dad, and I was constantly stuck hanging out in our apartment by myself with just our dog to keep my company, and I had just spent the last two hours waiting for him when I could have been doing something fun. Like watching Doctor Who.

Now that I had nothing to do, I went to the living room and flopped over on the couch. It wasn't long before our 13 year old dog, Athena, came out to greet me by laying her head on the cushion next to mine and licking my cheek. She was an old mixed-breed dog, between a German Shepherd and a Golden Lab, and I'd had her since I was four. She kept me company when I was lonely and I loved her for it. I wouldn't have traded her for the world. Sitting up, I placed her head in my lap and began scratching her behind the ear, her favorite spot, as I tried to think of something to occupy my time until I went to bed in a few hours. "Do you wanna watch some Doctor Who with me, girl? Huh, do ya?" Of course, she had no idea what I was saying and just wagged her tail, happy that someone was paying attention to her. Then an idea struck me.

I grabbed my phone off the couch cushion next to me and hit the call button on Lexi's name in my text messages. Lexi was my best friend, had been since I moved here five years back. She was the first friend I had made and really the only friend I still had. I didn't really like people, but Lexi had a way of making me laugh that I couldn't live without, especially since I was alone so often. And she was a Whovian so she was just that much better.

She picked up after three rings and I could practically hear the smile on her face. "Hey, Fi! I was just about to text you! What's shakin', bacon?"

I was off the couch and walking to my bedroom, Athena trailing behind me, before I even asked the question, "Dad's working late again tonight. Can I sleep over? We can watch David Tennant on Netflix."

"Why do you ask? You should just come over. You know I'm going to say yes. If my mother knew you still asked before you came over she'd kill me. She likes you better than me. She always says you're like the daughter she never had." Of course, she was joking. Her mother was absolutely amazing and gave me dinner to take home for my father a lot so I wouldn't have to cook. And I loved her mother, but it just reminded me of how much my own mother had left us and never looked back and of how long I could spend without seeing my father, between my going to school and work and his job. But it was still better than being home alone.

Lexi was like a sister to me and I had to laugh at the scolding tone in her voice that I had bothered to ask if I could come over. "I'm bringing Athena." I couldn't leave her home alone, especially when I didn't know what time my dad would be home, because she was getting old and had to go to the bathroom more frequently now. I also felt bad leaving her home alone.

"Naturally." And that was why she was my best friend and the only one I'd ever need. Of course, I would have traded a million sleepovers with her for a trip with the Doctor in the TARDIS, but we all knew that was never going to happen.

We said goodbye and hung up, with my promise to be at her house in about half an hour. It only took me a few minutes to pack a bag with pajamas for the night, clothes for the morning, my toothbrush, deodorant, and my stuffed giraffe, Chester, who I couldn't sleep without. It might have been childish but it was just something I had to have, and Lexi never poked fun. I also threw in Athena's travel bowls and some food for her in the morning.

Before I could leave, I went to the kitchen and scribbled a note for my father on a pad of paper that we kept on the front of the fridge. "_I'm sleeping over at Lexi's tonight. Took Athena with me so she wouldn't be lonely. Baked Mac is in the microwave for you. Don't put it on for more than two minutes or it could get rubbery. Hope you got home by midnight so you can get some sleep. Love you, Fi." _Attaching the leash to Athena's collar, I locked the front door and headed out with her.

Lexi lived about fifteen minutes away on foot if I was by myself, but it took about twice that to get there with Athena. She wasn't slow by any means, but she had to stop and smell everything. I didn't mind. I had no way of knowing how many more years I would have her with me, and if she wanted to smell things while she still could then I wouldn't get in the way of that. I was an awesome dog owner.

I was feeling excited about spending the night at Lexi's. It was a Friday, which meant we could stay up late watching Doctor Who reruns on Netflix and get to sleep in. It also meant she could read the first chapter of my fanfiction. Naturally, it was for Doctor Who and I had finished the chapter earlier, but I always liked for her to proof read my chapters before I posted them up. I was terrible with typos because I hated rereading my own work. It was about a girl named Evangeline who didn't much like her life and, when she runs into the Doctor on one of his adventures by accident, she jumps at the chance to travel with him. I didn't have a lot planned out yet except for who Evangeline was and I was still developing the plot a bit, but I was excited for it. I loved writing, and I loved fanfiction, especially when it came to Doctor Who fanfiction because then I could sort of live vicariously through my OC and pretend that the Doctor had whisked me away from my failure of a life.

I say failure because life had been less than stellar to me thus far. My mother had all but abandoned me and I my father worked so much that I hardly saw him anymore. The worst part? They weren't even my parents. I shouldn't say that. I had been adopted by them when I was eight years old, after being found, abandoned, on the corner of the street. I didn't have any memories from before that, though, so I couldn't tell you who abandoned me or why, or where I had been for those eight years of my life. My father had found me, and they adopted me not long after. They were the only parents I had ever known and I didn't even care that my father wasn't my actual father. Jack treated me like his daughter and that was all that mattered. I just wished he was home more often. But some part of me was happy he worked, because I couldn't handle the guilt of it all when he was home and alone with just me and our dog. It was my fault they had gotten a divorce. They had run into money issues when I was ten and, although Dad had sorted them out after a year or so, it had created a rift in their marriage that they couldn't fix or, rather, that she didn't want to fix. So she left. And it was my fault… because if they hadn't adopted me they wouldn't have had the money issues of having an extra person in the house to take care. I knew it was true. I had overheard my mother telling my dad that one night. And my father was miserable and working a million hours a week because of me.

I tried not to think about it and looked down at Athena, who had stopped to smell some flowers growing in the front of someone's porch. "Come on, girl, you've smelled those flowers a million times. Hell, you just smelled them the other day. They haven't changed that much." After another moment, she lost interest and continued walking.

That was when the toes of my foot caught on the sidewalk and I tripped, falling onto the sidewalk. I landed with a hard thud and felt the skin of my arms and knees scrape painfully. I looked back to see the culprit but I only found a piece of uneven sidewalk. Strange. I walked this way at least five times a week, more if you count the return trip back to my place, and I had never noticed that before. I had definitely never tripped over it before.

"You okay, girl-" I looked up at Athena to make sure she was alright and I hadn't pulled too hard on her collar when I fell, to find her taking off down the sidewalk in front of me after a squirrel. "_Athena_! Come back!" _No_, I couldn't lose her.

Ignoring the pain in my arms and legs and the bag of sleep over stuff that was now strewn over the sidewalk, I jumped to my feet and began to chase after her. I must have lost her leash when I fell. How could I be so _stupid_? I couldn't lose her. She was all the family I had, except for Dad, but she was always around. What would I do without her? She couldn't live out on her own either. She wasn't equipped for it! I had to get her back. "Athena! Come here, girl!" But she wouldn't listen. The squirrel, _that stupid squirrel_, just kept running in front of her. If only that piece of crap rodent would run up the telephone pole or _something_.

"No, Athena, stop!" Without even hesitating for a split second, my best friend dashed across the intersection. I couldn't breathe for a moment as I watched her run in front of a car which slammed on its brakes, and make it to the next sidewalk. For an old dog, she was fast. Faster than I was. I waited for the car to pass, and I dashed across the street after her. Please stop, Athena. I need you.

I didn't look both ways before running across the street, but I should have. I heard the car horn honking at me too late. When I finally did notice, everything went dark. _Please, Lexi, find Athena_.

~X~

"Evie?"

Whatever that word was, it was foreign to me and my pounding head. My brain felt like it was going to explode. Ugh, what the hell happened?

My eyes flew open with a start. _Athena_! Was she okay? Was I okay? Holy crap, where was I?

I took a deep breath to calm my screaming heart and looked around but I didn't recognize my surroundings. I was lying on a bed, comfortable I had to admit, with a blue and purple polka-dotted bedspread. It reminded me of my room at home somewhat, except for the bed and the color of the walls, which were also purple. The furniture looked practically the same and the carpeting was the same color as my own bedroom. Even the stars, painted onto the walls in various different colors, were the same. What in the ever loving fuck was going on?

"Evangeline?" Suddenly the bedroom door opened and a dark haired woman entered the room. "Are you feeling okay?" She had an English accent and it took a moment for my mind to register what she was saying and to understand it.

What did she call me? Evangeline? That wasn't my name. My name was Felicity. Evangeline was the name of my… Well, that just wasn't possible. Evangeline was the name of my character for my Doctor Who fanfiction. She was looking at me, concern written all over her face and expecting an answer from me. "What?" was all I could think of to say. And then I couldn't say anymore, because I didn't recognize my own voice. The tone was the same, but instead of my plain old American accent, I had an English one. And I knew it was an actual accent because I had tried giving myself an English accent before and it was absolutely terrible. Why did I have an English accent?

"I asked if you were alright, Evie," the woman said again as she sat down on the end of the bed. "You said you weren't feeling well. You've been asleep for almost two hours now."

"I wasn't feeling well?" Oh, wow, that accent was weird. Not going to get used to that. As I looked at the woman before me, it began to dawn on me. This was Regina, Evangeline's friend and her guardian. Evangeline was an orphan, like I was, but she had grown up in foster care until she was fifteen and she was taken in by a good friend who adopted her. This was that friend, Regina Green. And if I was suddenly English and being called Evangeline, and this was Regina… Did that mean I was in my fanfiction…?

Before I said anymore and gave myself more of a headache with my new accent, I stood up from the bed and stumbled over to the mirror on the closet door. And then my jaw dropped.

My long dark brown hair was the same length and style and my eyebrows were the same color, but it had been dyed an electric blue color. My whole head was blue. Everything else was just about the same. My eyes were still two different colors, with my right eye being grey and my left eye blue, and I still had the same milky white skin. I didn't really know why, but when I had made her, I had given her all of the same features, aside from the blue hair and her tattoos. Her tattoos. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt so I rolled my sleeves up. Written on the inside of my wrists, in black cursive tattoo ink, was the quote I had given Evangeline, "Dream as if you'll live forever; Live as if you'll die today." I was sure if I checked the other two spots, I would find the other tattoos there. I, Felicity, had never gotten tattoos, so the fact that they were suddenly there meant…

I was Evangeline.

But did that mean I was in Doctor Who?


	2. 2: I Have Been Through Hell and Back

Hey guys! Hope you all liked chapter 1! Thanks to Mad Girl with a Keyboard, Eagle Hawke, and Avalin Rose Ellyot for reviewing and to everyone who favorite'd and followed! And, as usual, thank you to Heycassbut for being so epicly awesome and helping me with this story and without her there would be no story so you should check out her DW fic Chasing Cars when you're done reading this. If you haven't noticed, which I won't blame you if you didn't, I have posted a link to a picture of Evangeline on my profile. It's not an awesome picture, nor it is very large, but it gives an idea of what she looks like because I know it's not easy trying to picture someone with blue hair. So that's there for you guys to check out so you can picture her easier. Also, before we get started, I should mention that part of this chapter is slightly graphic. I mean, I'm not good at writing graphic, torture-y kind of stuff so it shouldn't be too bad but if you're pain-sensitive or don't like reading about people getting hurt or things like that, here's a trigger warning for ya. It's the third part of this chapter just so you know. If you can't read it, feel free to PM me and I'll explain what happens but I suck at writing that kind of thing anyway so it shouldn't be too bad, but I thought I should make that announcement. But anyway this chapter is going to be kind of long. I could have broken it up into two or three chapters but I didn't want to make you guys wait much longer before seeing her with the Doctor (because otherwise the Doctor wouldn't be coming in until like chapter 6 and I didn't think that was fair) so I decided to make this one really long chapter in order to introduce the Doctor next chapter. I hope you guys don't mind but, speaking of it, let me know what you guys want from this story: do you want really long chapters that knock out whole episodes in one or two chapters, or do you prefer a bunch of shorter chapters? I don't really have a preference so let me know what you guys prefer and I can work with that. Okay I've done enough rambling so I'm going to get started but don't forget to review! This chapter is interesting and I think you guys will like it so review! They keep me going, and don't forget to let me know what you prefer.

**Mad Girl with a Keyboard:** Thank you so much! You're just the sweetest thing ever! I don't know if this is the best story of the year but thank you for thinking so : )

**Eagle Hawke:** I hope that was a good Uh-Oh?

**Avalin Rose Ellyot**: Thank you! I know there wasn't a lot to review on so far in just that first chapter but thank you for loving it so far!

Chapter 2: I Have Been Through Hell and Back Again

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><p>"<em>Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong."<em>

_Winston Churchill_

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><p>This couldn't be happening. This was weird and bizarre and… impossible. This was impossible. There was no way in hell it was even feasible that I was now my Doctor Who character. I could not be Evangeline because she didn't exist. She was a fictional person that I created in my mind. I had to be dreaming because this wasn't real. I hadn't really gotten hit by a car chasing my dog across the street and I wasn't really standing in a bedroom too similar to mine staring at a blue haired, English version of myself in the mirror.<p>

I pinched myself, or rather I pinched Evangeline, trying to wake myself up from whatever the hell this was. Except nothing happened and I was still standing there in the bedroom with Regina sitting on the bed. The look on her face screamed concern and exasperation all at once. This just couldn't be real. "What the hell is going on?" I couldn't think of anything else to say. This was too weird. Some part of me hoped that this was an extremely elaborate prank. "Why do you keep calling me Evangeline? That's not my name! My name is Felicity!"

Regina frowned, suddenly looking wary. She stood up and took a step towards me, planting her hands on my shoulders and sort of looking me over. "Evie, take a deep breath, okay? Do you want your medication? Although it's probably expired by now…"

My mind swirled in confusion. Medication? "Why the bloody hell would I want medication? I'm not some druggy." My American self cringed at the use of the word bloody as a swear, but Evangeline's English presence was so familiar with it that I couldn't help it when it came out.

"Dove, you're calling yourself Felicity again," she said gently, like I was a deer in the headlights she was trying not to startle. "Felicity is part of your delusion, which you haven't had in two years. Are you feeling okay? Did something happen?"

Delusion? Was Evangeline crazy? I didn't plan that; it wasn't part of my character. So now I was not only my fanfiction character, but she had aspects to her that I didn't even plan _and_ she was crazy. I definitely hit the jackpot here. I just needed a minute to think, and I needed Regina to go away. "I'm…" I wanted more than anything to say that I wasn't Evangeline, that I was Felicity and I didn't belong here, but I didn't think that was going to help me any. "I'm fine, Regina. I just had a bad dream and now my brain's all mush." Crap, that sounded weird. This accent was going to take some getting used to. "I think I'm just gonna lie back down for a few."

She smiled and moved her hand to brush some hair out of my face. I wanted to flinch and move. I hated when people got in my bubble space or tried to touch me. But Evangeline must have been more open to it than I was, at least with Regina, because part of me wanted to accept it. Either way, I couldn't just change everything Evangeline had been and done all through her life. Regina started to hug me, but I think she sensed my discomfort and let it go. "I'll just be in the other room if you need anything, Vee."

I nodded and she left my, I mean Evangeline's, room, closing the star-covered door behind her. I stood there, taking another look around at my surroundings. If I was going to be stuck here, then I would have to get used to her bedroom. It was just like mine so it wasn't all that different, minus the color. She even had the same pieces of paper tacked up on the wall with inspirational quotes that I had found and liked over the years. The "She's beauty; she's grace; she'll punch you in the face" quote hung right next to the framed picture of puppies that I had gotten from Wal-Mart, but I wasn't sure where she had gotten it.

My head was pounding like someone was playing the drums on it so I sat down on the bed and closed my eyes. If this was real, if this was really happening and I was Evangeline, then I had no idea how that happened. However, if indeed I _was_ Evangeline, then I should have access to her memories. Evangeline was apparently a lot different than I had created her and, if I was really going to be stuck as her, then I needed to know who the hell she was. Focusing on the memories floating around in my head, I tried to ignore the ones of my life as Felicity. It took me a moment but I was able to find Evangeline's memories buried below my own. As I sifted through them, her life started coming to me.

It looked like she was similar to me in more than just our looks and our bedrooms. Evangeline had been abandoned as well, and found on a street corner when she was about eight years old, just like me. Unlike me, however, she was never adopted by the people who found her. So instead of being given a name by her family, she was named after the street names of the corner: Evangeline Street and Blackstone Drive. Because she was never adopted, she was placed in foster care and grew up in it, being passed around from family to family. No one ever wanted to keep her because they thought she was crazy. Evangeline, from her first memory of waking up alone, apparently had an intense belief in things like aliens and the supernatural. Having been body swapped and put in Evangeline, I was inclined to believe her, but no one else had ever been. She would rave about the aliens around them and had even pointed out people on the street, saying that they were alien even though they looked human. One of her foster families submitted her to a London hospital for psychiatric care when she was eleven. The hospital wasn't cruel, per say, but they tried every way they could to squash her belief and make her feel like she was delusional. They tried dozens of medications, but she refused to let go of her belief in the extraterrestrial. Evangeline spent two years in that hospital, until one day she just decided to fake it and pretend like they were helping her, just to get out. At least she was clever. The foster family who had admitted her to the hospital was also the family that Regina came from, biologically. She had always gone to visit Evangeline at the hospital and made it clear that she didn't think hospitalizing her was the answer. Although Regina definitely though she was crazy, she was the only friend Evangeline had and at least she was nice. Regina, who was a older than Evangeline, went to college after she finished school but when she graduated and got a job, she put in to adopt Evangeline. And Evangeline had lived here since she was fifteen.

Evangeline had dozens upon dozens of amazing memories of living with Regina. Although Regina definitely thought she was delusional, she wasn't someone who thought medication was the answer to everything and as long as Evangeline wasn't showing signs of being a nut job then she didn't feel the need to give it to her. I guess that was nice. Either way, she loved it here. I definitely could have done worse.

No, crap, _she_ could have done worse. Just because I had Evangeline's memories didn't make me Evangeline. I was Felicity… wasn't I? Maybe not… Felicity, me, was probably dead over in whatever world I came from, because it certainly wasn't this one. I had gotten hit by that car and I knew that. The chances of me surviving, especially since I was now playing mind snatcher to Evangeline's host, were pretty slim to none. But I hardly knew this blue haired girl I was apparently supposed to be now. Sure, I had planned some of that background, like her name and the fact that she grew up in foster care and then was adopted by Regina, but other things, the hospitalization for crazy care, I had never thought of. Somehow, I had turned a real living person into a fictional character, and I had gotten her past wrong on top of it all. But how the hell had I done that? This was all so bizarre and confusing.

At least Regina offering me drugs made more sense now. I would just have to be careful not to act too much like my Felicity self and I would have to start answering to Evangeline, or Regina might know something was wrong. And then I might get shipped off to the loony bin again. Well, again for Evangeline but a first for me. Holy hell, this name thing was going to give me an aneurysm.

On the bright side, I now had a responsible adult guardian who would be around more often. Not that I didn't love my father. I missed him almost as much as I was worried about Athena, but maybe now that I was gone he could move on from the divorce and actually have a life that didn't revolve around work and then me. I did feel bad that he would be all alone now. I was sure he would find a new woman eventually, and even Lexi would probably find a new best friend. I just hoped that Lexi would have found Athena by now. I hope she was alright. But, without me, who would Lexi watch Doctor Who with?

That's when my eyes snapped open and something inside my brain clicked, and I almost wanted to punch myself for being so thick. Doctor Who! How did I not realize that? If I was in Evangeline's body and at least part of this was stuff I had written about for my fanfiction, my _Doctor Who fanfiction_, then that could mean… No, it had to mean that I was in Doctor Who. Don't ask me how that happened; I couldn't tell you. But I could meet the Doctor! I could finally have that life of travelling with the Doctor that I had always dreamed about. And maybe he could help me figure out why this had happened to me.

But how did I go about finding him? I was fairly certain that the dates that the episodes came out corresponded roughly with the time of year in the episodes. But I wasn't positive… Having a thought, I looked around for my phone. Evangeline's phone? I suppose I would have to start calling everything mine now. I found it on the floor next to the bed. I had probably knocked it down when I got up to look in the mirror. Picking it up, I frowned. She had a nicer phone than I did, or had. Whatever; not important right now. Turning the screen on, I looked at the date. It was May, the second to be exact, of 2007. Huh, that was weird. I apparently had gone back in time, too, which sort of proved the fact that I wasn't in my world anymore. I had been in 2014, though at least the month stayed the same. Technically speaking, I should only be ten now since I went back seven years, but Evangeline was seventeen so I guess I stayed the same. This whole time and world and body traveling was giving me a migraine. Why did this have to be so complicated?

Okay, so May of 2007. I was a massive Whovian, had been since the show came back in 2005, who had a lot of free time and not much else to do besides watch Doctor Who and play video games. What did that mean? Well, if I was correct and I really hoped I was, then it meant that season two was still going on. Season two ended in July of 2007, with the Doomsday episode where Rose leaves. So if they hadn't done Doomsday yet…

Turning around on my bed, I pulled the curtains of the window on the wall there back and looked outside. If I was right, then the Canary Wharf Torchwood building should still be up and I should be able to see it. I still remembered what it looked like, because I was a giant nerd. I scanned the London skyline outside my window, searching, almost frantically, for any sign of the Torchwood building. But I didn't see it.

No, where was it? It had to be there. There was no way it had already been destroyed. I guess there was one way to find out.

Getting off the bed, I slipped a pair of slippers onto my bare feet. I was just going to have to start calling everything mine, as weird as it sounded. I opened my bedroom door and walked down the hall into the living room, where I found Regina sitting on the couch with a book. "Hey, Gi," I said, using the nickname for her that felt strangely familiar. "Did I miss the ghost shift?"

"Unfortunately for you, no," she said with a laugh. "I know how much they creep you out. Why do you ask? Are you going to warn me to avoid them again, for the hundredth time."

Okay, good, Evangeline didn't like the ghosts either. With her alien obsession, she probably had some sort of sense that they were evil. At least I didn't have to pretend to like them or run the risk of changing how Evangeline acted suddenly. "Yes, I am. Stay away from them, Gi. They're bad news." That lifted a weight off my shoulders, and I found I was breathing easier. So the ghost shift was still going on which meant that Torchwood was still up and the Doctor hadn't shut them down yet.

Putting her book down on the end table next to the couch, Regina patted the empty seat next to her. "Sit, Dove. You want to watch a movie?"

Part of me felt like this was a completely normal thing, but the other part of me was shocked and ecstatic all at the same time. It had been so long since I had sat down and done anything with my dad, and I had almost forgotten that parents did that with their kids. I finally had a parent who wouldn't leave me alone all the time.

Flopping down on the couch next to her, I couldn't help but smile. "Sure, but I get to pick."

Things were beginning to look up. I was in the Doctor Who universe. I had to be, because the ghost shift didn't exist in my world. I wasn't sure why I was here, but there wasn't anything I could do to change it. So I would just learn to accept it, and I would meet the Doctor.

~X~

"You're taking Mephistopheles to the vet today right?"

Regina waited until she was finished sipping her coffee to nod at me. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he just has an ear infection but he needs a checkup anyway."

It had been a month since I had first woken up in this weird situation. That was a whole month of living as Evangeline, but I had to say I was getting used to it. I still thought of myself as Felicity somewhat, but I was beginning to also think of myself as Evangeline and calling all of her stuff mine was less abnormal now. Regina had also really grown on me these last two weeks. I had thought things would be awkward, because she wasn't really _my_ guardian and she wasn't my father, but she was so good at being an adoptive mother to Evangeline, to me, that I couldn't help but feel comfortable around her. Although, really, she was more of a sister than anything but she had good motherly moments. It was nice, considering that my own mother had ditched me and never looked back when my parents divorced. Of course I was still sad that I would never get to see my father or Lexi, or even Athena, again and all this body snatching had managed to do was make me into _another_ sad orphan girl with no idea who her parents were or why she was abandoned. And I still had no clue as to why in the hell I had even been turned into this girl who was eerily similar to me.

According to the partial timeline I had been able to put together, there should only be a month left until the Cyber man attack and Torchwood died and, therefore, only a month until I could meet the Doctor. I still hadn't figured out a way to actually get in the Torchwood building and accomplish the meeting part of the plan but I was working on it. I would have to hide who I was, though. I couldn't very well tell the Doctor that I was from a parallel universe where his life was a television show, because then he might ask things about his future and I knew that telling him anything could ruin timelines and cause things to happen that shouldn't happen. So this was just a secret I would have to keep to myself. It might be difficult, but it was worth it. I had always dreamed of traveling with the Doctor, even if those dreams had always been just fantasies that would never happen except in fanfiction, and once I was traveling with him I might actually be worth something. I could _be_ someone. And maybe he could help me figure out why this all happened because I knew I wouldn't be able to let this go. I was a curious person and this whole situation was making me kind of crazy because I didn't know anything about it.

"What do you want to do for dinner tonight?" Zoning back in, I noticed Regina was still talking. "You alright, Evie? You've been spacing a lot lately. Something bothering you?"

So she had noticed. That was the downfall of having someone who was home more often. My dad was never home so he didn't notice when I was dealing with something I couldn't talk about. Regina noticed, and she always wanted to talk about things. Not that Evangeline had been any more of a sharer than I was, but that had never stopped Regina from trying. And it made me feel bad because Regina was such an amazing, kind person and I knew that all she wanted to do was help me, but it wasn't like I could just tell her that I was a girl from a completely different universe. Well, I suppose I could, but then she would just think that I was having my delusions again and try to medicate me. It sucked when people thought you were crazy. "Five by five, Gi," I said after a moment, using the phrase I had adopted from Evangeline. It wasn't something I would have said as Felicity but, being part of Evangeline now, I found that I was doing some of the things she would have done. Catchphrases weren't the only thing I had taken from her. I had also developed her ability to play the guitar, which was something I'd always wanted to learn as Felicity and never did so that was a bonus, but I had also taken up her terrible, disgusting smoking habit. Yes, Evangeline was a smoker. I had _not_ made her that way. I thought smoking was a terrible habit and I had made my father quit after the divorce so he could start fresh. But apparently Evangeline, the person and not my fanfiction character, had been smoking for a few years now. She wasn't a heavy smoker or a chain smoker or anything like that; it was more like she had to have a cigarette only when she was feeling anxious or stressed out. But that need for a cigarette was ingrained into her, into me now, and I had tried to not give into the extreme urge to smoke when I was feeling out of control but I couldn't and one day Regina came home with a pack for me, because evidently she allowed Evangeline to make her own decisions about it, and I pretty much just broke and started smoking. And even though it was disgusting and every time I had one I was yelling at myself internally, it did make me feel better afterwards.

She was giving me that look of "I know you're lying so spill" so I sighed and leaned back in the booth. We were having lunch on my break at the London café that Evangeline, and unfortunately now me because I was stuck as her, worked at. I much preferred Felicity's easy job of being a receptionist at an old folks' home. I sucked at being a waitress. Apparently waitressing was not one of the skills I had been able to absorb. And the manager, Collin except I tended to call him Colon behind his back because he annoyed me, was getting pissed at me because I was sucking at it. So I would probably get fired soon and everything was just fantastic. She was watching me, waiting for me to say something, so I shrugged. "I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping well." That was true. "And Colon won't get off my case, and I need a smoke."

Her smile softened and she squeezed my hand. "Things will get better, Dove." Checking her watch, Regina grabbed her purse off the seat next to her and stood. She'd already paid for her check. "Come, walk me out. I want to get home before the ghost shift starts. Your hatred of them rubbed off on me. They're weird and they creep me out. Not to mention that trying to walk home during a shift is worse than a traffic jam with all the people who come out to see them."

I was planning on having a cigarette before I went back to work anyway so I agreed and followed her out. Working at this place gave me more stress than the whole being in someone else's body thing and I found that I wanted to smoke more when I was here, which was probably going to end up killing me. I was also finding that the more I smoked the less I really cared. Sure, I hated it but I think I was coming to terms with the idea that Evangeline had passed along her addiction and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Once we were outside, I pulled a cigarette from the pack I kept in the pocket of my apron and lit it, taking a puff. Regina crinkled her nose at it, like she always did. "That's going to kill you someday, you know."

I simply rolled my eyes. She also always said that, although she kept buying me packs so she was really just enabling me and trying to make herself feel better about it by nagging me. "So you keep saying, Gi."

She waited for me to finish my smoke and ditch it in the ashtray stand that was outside the café doors before pulling me into a hug. I reluctantly hugged her back, mostly because it's what Evangeline would have done. I couldn't stand hugs, going back to the whole bubble space issue, but it wasn't something I could make Regina stop doing so I put up with it. "Alright, I'll see you at home after you get out?"

"Sure beans," I said with a smile. We had plans to watch Harry Potter tonight after dinner so I was looking forward to going home. I always looked forward to leaving work but I hadn't seen the Harry Potter movies in ages so it was something extra to make my night better. "Don't forget to call the vet for Mephistopheles." He was our cat. Regina had gotten him for Evangeline when she first moved in, and creative pet names were something Evangeline loved. I had to say I was rather fond of the name myself.

We said goodbye and I watched as she turned and walked away towards our flat. With a half-assed smile, I walked back inside the café.

I worked for another three hours until my shift was over and I was finally free to go home. I changed out of my uniform before I left, refusing to be seen on the street in the stupid frilly dress I was forced to wear. Granted, I was getting changed into another dress, because I had nothing against dresses normally, but I absolutely loathed ruffles and frills and my uniform pretty much made me look like I had been eaten by them. I didn't say goodbye to anyone as I left the café; Evangeline didn't have a lot of friends. That was something I had in common with her. Aside from Lexi, I'd never had a lot of friends either.

I contemplated lighting up another cigarette as I walked home, but I only had one left in the pack and my anxiety was wearing off now that I was out of work so I decided against it. Looking back at it now, I kind of wish I had used it. It had only gone to waste.

I was a little more than halfway home, looking up at the Torchwood building and trying to come up with a plausible way of meeting the Doctor, and I was crossing the street when two large black SUV's came out of nowhere and swerved to a stop in front of me. My gut kicked in, telling me I should turn around right that instant and book it the hell out of there. But before I could even take a step backwards, two burly looking men holding guns got out of the driver seats and marched over to stand on either side of me. "That's not creepy at all," I mumbled, trying to hide the unease I felt. I could have used that smoke right about then. My instincts were screaming at me that something bad was going to happen. I briefly attempted to run for it but, the moment my foot moved, one of the men grabbed my arm, holding me in that spot. It was only a second before I felt a meaty hand on my other arm as well. I hated to say it, because I hated feeling weak, but this was freaking me out now. Those lack SUV's looked awfully familiar… And then I realized why.

A blonde woman climbed out of one of the passenger seats and walked on her obnoxiously tall high heels over to me, stopping when she was a few inches from me and looking so smug you would think she had just become the new Queen of England. I knew that face, and I had hated it since the first moment I saw it on my television screen all those years ago. "Yvonne fucking Hartman." Her eyes widened a little bit when I said her name, but that stupid little smirk stayed right on her hideous face where it was. "Of course. Because my life wasn't a disaster enough. What the fuck do you want? Come to release your Cybermen early?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, little girl," she said, sounding more patronizing than ever. The way she was looking at me reminded me of the nature documentaries my mother used to like to watch on TV, before she left us; like a lion watching its prey before it pounced and tore its throat out. "Evangeline Blackstone, you are a very interesting girl. You're going to have to come with us."

I looked around, trying to find someone to help me, but the very few people who were around weren't making any moves to do anything. Thanks a lot, bystanders, you're not completely useless or anything. I focused back on Yvonne, trying my best to look as badass as I could. "What the hell do you want? I'm pretty sure kidnapping is illegal. I have someone waiting for me at home. She'll call the cops when I don't show up, and then your sorry blonde ass will be arrested and the world will be a better place once more."

"Well, aren't you… feisty," that last word dripped from her voice like I was garbage that she had to suffer cleaning up. "Regardless, we have ways of dealing with that. No one will miss you. You can't miss what isn't there, after all." She snapped her fingers and started to turn around as the gun guys holding my arms began dragging me forward toward one of the SUV's.

"Let go of me," I yelled at them, trying to dig my feet into the street to stop myself. But they were too strong for me and all I succeeded in doing was hurting my foot when it twisted awkwardly. Great, I was getting kidnapped and I twisted my ankle. "What the fuck do you want, Yvonne? I'm no one, nothing, so why do you want me?"

She stopped long enough to look at me, that smirk still plastered to her face. "I don't doubt that you're nothing, honey, because you can't be something if you don't exist. And according to our data, you don't exist at all."

Before I could retort, I felt something hit the back of my head and my vision spiraled into darkness.

~X~

At the very least, the extremely miniscule very least, I had gotten my wish. I had found a way to get into Torchwood so that I could meet the Doctor when Doomsday went down. The only downside? I was now a lab rat and there was a good possibility that they would kill me before I could ever even get to Doomsday.

What was I talking about? Well, my dear non-existent friends, not only was I kidnapped by Torchwood and the bitch who goes by Yvonne but should really be called Bitch-vonne or something less terrible sounding than that, but I found out that they had kidnapped me for experimental testing. Why? Why would they do that? Because, according to Bitch-vonne, and I was really going to have to come up with something more clever than that because that truly sucked, I did not exist. Yes, that's what I said. I did not exist. Which doesn't make sense at all whatever because clearly I was doing the existing thing, being that I was there and I existed. I was a person, and I was solid and people could see me so I was fairly certain that constituted existing. But apparently their data was telling them that I didn't exist and so that meant they felt like they could do experimental testing to get further data to tell them that I didn't exist even more.

If I sounded sarcastic and bitter, it was because I was extremely sarcastic and bitter. I had been in this hell hole for two weeks and things were not getting better. I think it was two weeks, anyway. They didn't exactly give me a calendar to keep track of my time, and it was rare that I was able to look out a window so I couldn't tell when the day was passing. But I had been trying to keep up with the passing of time according to the schedule they worked around here at Torchwood. I had estimated that I had been there for about two weeks, but it was entirely possible that I was wrong and it only felt longer than it was. But now that I was stuck in Torchwood, at least I didn't have to come up with a way to get in so I could meet the Doctor. Now it was only a question of survival and making it to the day that the Doctor would actually arrive.

I was stuck lying down on the uncomfortable as hell cot in the cell they had stuck me in. It reminded me of one of those rooms you see on TV for crazy people in straightjackets, with the puffy white walls and floors. The only thing that wasn't puffy was the cot they had given me, so usually I just slept on the floor because it was better. I felt like they thought I was to bash my skull open and kill myself if they had put me in an actual room, which I wasn't going to do but they wouldn't listen to anything I said. The door didn't even have a way to unlock it from the inside, which was something they, and I, had learned the hard way. The first day I was here they had put me in a similar room but the door had a lock on my side, and I had been fortunate enough to wear a bobby pin in my hair that day. One of the many skills I had gotten from Evangeline was lock picking, something she had picked up from her years in foster care, so I had picked the lock and tried escaping. Rather unfortunately, they had found me and tased me until I was unconscious, and let me tell you that getting tased like that hurt like a bitch, and when I woke up I was in this room with no way to get out. They hadn't even given me anything to do while I was here. No book or video games or anything even remotely interesting, so all I could do was sit and stare at the ceiling and think about random things.

My thoughts often fluttered back to Regina, wondering how she was faring with me gone. Had she called the police when she realized I wasn't coming home? Were they out looking for me right now? Or had they simply chalked it up to me being a rebellious foster kid who felt the need to fly the coop again, which Evangeline had done multiple times throughout her life. I honestly doubted the police would look much farther than that, but I knew Regina wouldn't give up until she knew I was safe. But, knowing Torchwood, I knew that no one would ever find me here, aside from the Doctor, so I was only torturing myself by worrying about Regina. I had finally found a parent who loved me and wanted to spend time with me, a home that I felt at home at, and I had been ripped from it, just like everything good had been ripped from my life at some point. It was a never ending trend, and the only good thing I had to look forward to was the possibility of traveling with the Doctor once this was all over and he found me. Just two more weeks, I hoped.

I just couldn't understand the purpose to all of this. Clearly, I did exist, yet they continually told me that their data said I didn't. I wasn't sure what that meant, though, because they refused to show me any of the actual data. To me, it was just some mythical thing that said I deserved to be tormented repeatedly. They kept comparing me to that damned orb, the one with all the Daleks in that that Indian guy, Rajesh or whatever, kept watch over. Apparently, because the orb didn't exist, it must have had something to do with me. I couldn't even point out the fact that the orb did technically exist and it just wasn't detectable in our world yet, because I couldn't let Torchwood know that I had knowledge of the future. That would be even worse than letting the Doctor know. But I obviously had nothing to do with the sphere, but they wouldn't listen to that. They didn't believe in logic here, clearly. Idiots. So, instead of listening to me, they decided to perform a bunch of experiments on me to figure out why I didn't exist. The entire thing was confusing and extremely annoying, especially since the tests they were running on me were getting worse.

They had started out by performing simple things, like what you might have done at a doctor's office. Things that weren't too bad, like blood tests. They did a lot of blood tests the first few days I was here, which was fine except for the amount of blood they were taking made me extremely dizzy and weak feeling. It was also creepy because they might as well have been vampires for all the massive amount of blood they took. From blood work, they moved onto things like scans. A few x-rays, and then they moved onto the kind of scans that require you to have stuff inside you. They made me drink some disgusting liquid a couple times for scans, and then I started refusing to drink it because it was gross. I made the point that they couldn't force-feed me the liquid because they would run the risk of drowning me, so they moved to injecting me with things instead and doing scans that way. It would have been fine, and the better choice, except they did so many injections so often, and rather roughly I might add, that I was bruising all over the place from them, and I had more than a couple lumps under the skin from air bubbles and things like that. They still did the occasional scan, but then they had moved onto injecting me with things that weren't for scanning. I had no idea what they were putting in me, and they refused to answer my questions. But whatever they were shooting me up with, and I was pretty sure it was always something different and that they were probably making their own chemicals to put in me, always made me feel crappy beyond belief and usually made me sick somehow. One time, I had broken out in hives, reacting to whatever they had just injected me with, so bad that I almost died. My throat had closed up almost instantaneously and I swelled up like a balloon, and they had to inject me with something else to make it stop. It felt like an allergic reaction, which made me think they had used some type of aspirin, because it was the only thing I knew I was allergic to that badly. While I was swelling and my throat was closing, I had briefly hoped that it would kill me just so that all of this would end, because I wasn't sure how much more I could take.

Then I had remembered that I just had to deal with it until the Doctor came, and he would save me from all this mess. So I endured the torment and the testing and the pain of it all. I held back the anger and the rage for all of this and for the scientists that kept doing this that bubbled within me constantly, because I knew the Doctor would be here soon, and then it would be worth it.

Disturbing me from my thoughts once more, I heard the lock of the door click and looked over to see it swinging open. Two guards, the burly ones dressed in all black but carrying a taser instead of a gun, stepped into the room and motioned for me to get up. I did so begrudgingly, knowing they would make me get up if I didn't do it on my own, and waited quietly as they handcuffed my hands together in front of me. The handcuffs were a precaution because one day, as they were walking me down the hallway, one of the scientists said something, and it wasn't even really something that would normally bother me, but I had been so fed up with them that I snapped and, managing to pull my arm free from the guard, I punched the scientist guy in the face. I think I broke his nose or something because the next day his eyes were both kind of black and he had bandages all over his nose. Of course it had backfired on me and I had gotten tased again, but it was worth it to see him so miserable and in pain.

I was ushered out of the room and the guards both grabbed one of my arms, forcing me down the hallway with them. When we got to the end of the hall, we were met by the two scientists who always did the testing. "Is your face still feeling a bit sore, Ed?" I asked mockingly to the one scientist whose face was still a bit puffy after the whole nose thing. He only glared at me and turned around to start walking. The other man said nothing and followed suit, motioning for the guards to bring me along. I had no choice but to try and walk fast enough to keep up with them, or else I would just be dragged along.

After walking for at least a few minutes in silence, we stopped at the room I knew very well from the show. This was how I was able to try and keep track of the days; they brought me to this room every day before beginning their tests on me. They never really told me anything about what they were doing, but it seemed like they were hoping that I would cause the sphere to do something. Of course, nothing ever happened but it didn't stop them from trying. As usual, they dragged me into the room and the guards stopped with me about halfway across the room. I glanced up at the orb and sighed. I knew that it wasn't just a sphere, that it was the Dalek void ship thing, but they had no idea.

Rajesh, who had been up on the stairs by the sphere when we entered, looked uncomfortable as he came back down. I didn't like him much, because I hated this entire place and the fact that he even worked here, but I had to give him credit for at least knowing that what they were doing to me was wrong. "Haven't you realized by now that she has nothing to do with the sphere? If it hasn't reacted to her yet, I doubt it ever will. What you're doing to this poor girl is pointless and entirely unethical." He was constantly trying to tell them that.

"Give it up, Rajesh," I snapped at him. He looked taken back by my outburst, because I had never said anything to him up until now. Part of me knew that he meant well by telling them to stop, but the large part of me couldn't stand how useless he was. "They're not going to listen to you. I'm not even sure they're human. Yvonne probably ripped out their hearts and ate them when she consumed her own."

"You know his name? That's very interesting." I could almost feel the blood in my veins turn to ice as I heard Yvonne's grating voice enter the room. I couldn't turn around to look at her so I had to wait as she took her sweet time walking up to face me. Maybe she should stop wearing heels; she might walk faster if her feet weren't contorted into an angle from wearing them. "I gave specific orders that you weren't to be given any information on the people who work here, including names, and I know no one has told you who he is. So how is it that you know his name?"

I was so tempted just to spit in her face and stomp on her foot, but I held myself back. It wouldn't do me any good. "I know a lot of things, Hartman," I snarled, resisting the urge to string a bunch of curses together. "I know that all of this testing is absolutely pointless and that you're wrong. I do exist. You're just an idiot. I also know that you're going to die, and I'm going to enjoy it, and no amount of queen and country is going to save your sorry ass from going to hell." That wasn't exactly revealing my future knowledge. I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't believe me anyway, so there was no harm done.

She smirked, that stupid fucking smirk that I swear was glued on to her face because it never changed, and walked away from me to talk to the scientists who were still standing back by the door. "There doesn't seem to be any connection with the sphere today, so you're free to go do your testing. We need to isolate a piece of her for independent testing. We don't want to break her by working her too hard." I couldn't turn around to see, but I heard the clicking of her stupid heels as the door opened once more and then it was gone.

The guards finally moved, turning me around and walking towards the door. With what Yvonne had just said, I was dreading what they had in store for me today. Isolate a piece of me? What the hell did that mean? I just hoped that it didn't mean they were going to cut off a body part. As the door opened for us to leave, a familiar face walked into the room. _Mickey,_ I thought to myself as he looked at me. I was so tempted to call out for him to do something, but I stopped myself before I could. I didn't need him thinking it was strange that I knew who he was.

Once again I was being forced down a hallway and I was too nervous about what they might do to me this time to come up with any witty things to say. We walked down four different hallways until we reached the room I knew so well. They always did all of their testing in this one room, except for when I was taken elsewhere for scans or something similar. Inside, I was shoved into the large black chair in the middle of the room and straps were wrapped around my wrists and upper arms, restricting me from being able to move my arms. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, trying to sound tougher than I felt at the moment.

One of the scientists, the one who wasn't Ed but I didn't know his name so I just called him Toupee because he had a really terrible one, grinned at me with that sadistic smile on his face that I had come to recognize. "Today, you obnoxious little brat, we're going to cut a chunk of flesh out of your arm so that we can test it without killing you, because Yvonne says that we have to keep you alive for further testing. Just for fun, we're not going to give you any painkillers. But don't worry; we won't do any permanent damage. We need you functioning for more testing after all this so we promise not to do any nerve damage. The skin on your forearm is fatty enough that we won't run that risk."

"Fucking hell, you're a psychotic bastard." I slung as many swears at them as I could but inside my heart was racing. I didn't have an extremely high pain threshold and this sounded like it was going to hurt. Why couldn't they just realize that this was inhumane?

I tried moving my arms, hoping that by some miracle they hadn't strapped me down properly, but I couldn't move. Off to the side of me, I watched as they pulled gloves onto their hands and grabbed a scalpel off the table. Ed, with his swollen face, looked particularly pleased as he watched me fidget in my seat as Toupee walked over to me with the knife in his hand.

All I could do was try and brace myself as I felt the tip of the scalpel slide into the skin of my forearm. There was nothing for a brief second, and then pain exploded through my forearm as the blood, bright red, began pooling out of the opening and down the sides of my arm onto the chair. I couldn't help but let out a scream as he moved the scalpel down. I could feel the skin ripping as the edge of the knife tore it apart. It felt like all the nerves in my body, in my arm, were on fire, screaming at me to douse them with ice. I was vaguely aware that I was still screaming some and cursing at them, trying to rip my arm out of its bindings, but nothing helped. The pain was blinding and I saw spots when I looked at them.

I had no idea how long it took for them to cut out that piece of my skin, but it felt like years. When they were done, I was exhausted. The blood poured out of the fresh hole in my arm, feeling like liquid fire as it ran over my uninjured skin.

I was hardly aware of the bandages they were wrapping around the wound, only to help it heal so that I wouldn't die from it. All I knew was that I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take. How could I survive like this?

I just had to hold on until the Doctor came.

~X~

I just wanted some sleep. That's it. That's all I cared about. Even just a few hours would be fine. I just wanted to get some sleep. But I couldn't.

Not only had I developed some sort of insomnia from all the testing and the stress and not being able to that anxiety away, but my arm throbbed continuously now. They had bandaged it up after cutting out part of my skin and every so often they would change the bandage so that my arm wouldn't rot and fall off, but they refused to give me any sort of pain killer. And having a hole cut into your arm hurt like a bitch, and the healing made it itchy but I couldn't itch it through the bandage. If there was anything that these assholes did well, it was bandage a wound. Granted, that didn't really mean anything because they were the one who had cut my arm apart. I also thought that it was infected, but they didn't listen to that. I believed that it was probably another test, to see how well my body would deal with the wound.

I was pretty sure it had been at least a week since they had done that, but I wasn't sure. I had lost track of days afterwards when the exhaustion had set in. I was still exhausted, because I couldn't sleep between the pain and the fear of what might happen if I did sleep. Would they perform some other horrible experiment on me while I slept? If I did sleep, did it mean that they had drugged me so I would sleep? I wasn't so much afraid of what they would do to me while I was awake anymore. I had moved past it into the pent up rage that had been growing since I got here, and now I was just pissed. But that didn't mean when I was alone and thinking of all the terrible things they could still do to me I wasn't afraid. Fear was only human, after all. But what if I wasn't even that? If their tests still said I didn't exist, what did that mean? People could see me and feel me, so I had to exist. I knew that I did.

Right now, all I wanted to was sleep, but my throbbing arm wouldn't let me. It was fine, though, because as soon as I closed my eyes to try again, the door opened. "On your feet, girl," one of the guards grumbled at me when I didn't respond. I didn't really feel like getting manhandled any more than I had to, so I reluctantly sat up and got to my feet.

As per the daily routine, I was handcuffed and forced out of the room. Ed, whose face was finally starting to look hideously normal again, and Toupee were waiting for me outside the cell. That was weird; they normally met us at the end of the hallway because Toupee was fat and they were too lazy to walk all the way down here. They didn't look pleased, which made me happy but also made me wonder why. They were always happy when they got to torment me. "'Sup, boys?" I yawned as we started down the hallway. "You fellas don't have your game faces on today. Did someone die? You probably killed them. What fun things are we doing today?"

They didn't answer me. They never did. I wasn't scared of them anymore, and now I just poked fun at them for the most part. "Or maybe your wife left you, since you have that ridiculous toupee on. She probably wants a man with real hair who didn't go bald prematurely. Or maybe _he_ wants a man with real hair. I'm pretty sure Ed just wants his face to heal. Although I think you looked better when your face was all puffy and bruised. Made you look like less of a sissy." It was fun because you could almost see the veins pulsing in their heads, ready to pop. They were getting sick of me and I loved it. I knew they wouldn't kill me, because their data was too important to them for that. "You know, I'm still pretty sure that my arm is infected. The throbbing is getting worse. But you don't care about that, do you? No, probably not. But, I'm telling you, we can have the best time! When my arm gets so infected that it just falls off, I can beat you guys with it! Doesn't that sound like fun, Thing One?" Both guards looked the same to me so I had just started calling them Thing One and Two, like in Dr. Seuss.

We passed by the room with the sphere, and I frowned. They were still taking me there every day, so it was weird that we wouldn't go in there. Was it still the same day? Maybe they were doing two tests today instead of just one. I couldn't be sure without any idea of what time it was. Then we passed by the hallway with the testing room, and that's when I got really confused. They brought me to an elevator, not far from our usual room, and we got inside. I noticed Ed push the button for the top floor, which meant that we were going to see Yvonne. Or that's what I thought it meant. I hadn't been up there, and I had only seen her a few times since I had been at Torchwood. "Hey, guys, where are we going?" No answer. "Come on, Toupee, spill the beans. Tell me where we're going." I saw Toupee twitch slightly, which meant I was getting to him. "I swear to holy hell, if one of you doesn't tell me where we're going I'm going to start screeching like a banshee and no one wants to hear that."

I opened my mouth to start screeching, and Toupee finally turned around to look at me. "Do you ever shut up? You are the most loud and obnoxious brat I have ever seen. We're going to see Yvonne, does that make you happy?" So I was right; Yvonne wanted to see me. "Hopefully she'll finally give us the okay to put your sorry ass down and out of our misery."

Toupee turned back around, as we were almost at the top floor, and I was boiling on the inside. I was afraid, just a little bit, but mostly I was pissed. She was going to spend weeks having them test me and torture me, just to have me killed? Hell no. I was not going to go out like that. Not when I was so close to meeting the Doctor. I was a fighter, and Evangeline was capable with street fighting somewhat, so I would kick her ass before she could kill me.

Finally, we arrived at the top floor and the guards brought me out of the elevator, but the scientists stayed on, closing the doors and disappearing from sight. In front of me, I could see Yvonne standing in the middle of the room with all the computers and the ghost shift levers. The guards brought me forward, closer to her, but they made the mistake of loosening the grip on my arms. As soon as I felt it, I ripped my arms out of their grasp and bounded over the last couple steps to Yvonne, wasting no time in grabbing the collar of her stupid blouse with my cuffed hands. "You fucking bitch," I practically spat at her, growling.

I could hear the guards move behind me, and Yvonne put her hands up on either side of me in a sign to back down. "It's fine," she told them, in her voice that made my ears want to bleed. "A child is just acting like a child. She won't do anything. She doesn't have it in her. She's merely throwing a temper tantrum because she thinks she's been treated unfairly. But, in actuality, something that doesn't exist doesn't deserve to be treated like a human being."

All the rage that had been building up inside me for the last month exploded and I pulled her face so close to mine that I could see her pupils grow. "When have you _ever_ treated anything like a human being, Yvonne? You don't even know what that means. You are cold and heartless and it's no wonder the universe wants you dead." In my world, when I had watched the last episodes of season two, I had always felt a little bad for Yvonne when she got turned into a Cyberman because she was able to survive it inside her Cyberman body and that had to be unbearable. But now I realized that the only reason she was able to withstand it was because she as too big of a bitch to die that easily. "What gives you the right to play God with other people, Yvonne? Tell me that. Who gave you permission to treat people like guinea pigs and lab rats and torture them until they go insane? I've been insane, Hartman, and this? This is a fucking picnic compared to the hell I've been through." My hands shook as I held the fabric of her blouse in my fists, and she struggled a little against it. I could tell my words made her uncomfortable, and I relished in that. "Do you want to know how I _know_ that I exist, Yvonne? Because _everything_ hurts all the time. I have been through hell and I have faced pain like you couldn't imagine, and you can't feel that if you don't exist. I am so glad that you're going to die, and I really hope I get the chance to rip your face off before you do because you _can't_ just mutilate people for the sake of science and practically kill them by injecting them with who knows what and ripping chunks of flesh out of them and I'm actually sad that I won't get to see you in hell because you are going to suffer for being such a-"

I stopped suddenly when I felt a hand on mine, and I looked away from Yvonne's face to the fingers that were prying me off her collar. "It's okay. You're safe now. She can't hurt you anymore."

That voice… I knew that voice.

Turning my head to look at the man that the hand belonged to, I felt my jaw drop. I was looking up into the face of the Doctor.

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><p>That came out a lot longer than I had been expecting so sorry, somewhat, about this massively long 11,000 word chapter. I just really wanted to get to the point of meeting the Doctor. Next chapter starts the first episode of the story and lots of DoctorEvangeline fun! FYI, I will be referring to her as Evangeline from now. She will occasionally talk about her "Felicity self" but she is now and forever Evangeline from this point forward, just so that can get cleared up. Don't forget to review, and let me know what you prefer chapter-wise: long chapters or short ones? Longer ones take longer to put up, but smaller ones get less action. I'm thinking of doing a rule of three chapter per episode but I'm not sure on it so let me know what you think. And review!


	3. 3: Why Was I So Short?

And we're back! Did you miss me? I betcha did. Nah, I'm kidding, I'm more paranoid that you didn't miss me and don't want to read this anymore. But I'm hoping that's not true! First things first, thank you so much to Littlebirdd, BookGeek890, CalicoKitty402, Avalin Rose Ellyot, Mad Girl with a Keyboard, and ElysiumPhoenix for reviewing. I really love reviews. They make me so happy and let me know that you guys are loving this and Evangeline and this whole shenanigan here. Thanks to everyone who followed or favorite'd this story as well because you guys are just as important as the reviewers. And, as always, an extra special thanks to Heycassbut for being my new best friend and helping me out with all this planning because I suck at planning and this story would be much worse than it already is without her. So! I think I'm going to follow a rule of making every episode 2-3 chapters in this story so that I don't run the risk of taking four weeks to get a chapter out, but I also don't make a lot of short chapters because I hate taking too long to get an episode done. Obviously, it will change depending on the episode because some episodes have more things that Evangeline won't be in (because this story is about 95% her perspective and a little bit of the Doctor's every now and then) and these chapters specifically are different-ish because we're starting with Army of Ghosts at the end and I don't feel like taking four or five chapters to get through these two episodes so I'm trying to bang these out in as few chapters as possible. Anyways, like I said before, there is a pretty shotty picture of Evangeline on my profile that you can check out, and I'll be posting some other stuff on there like what she's wearing and an update schedule. I plan on getting a chapter out at least every other week. I'm free right now but school is starting up in two weeks and this is a heavy semester so I won't have as much time to write so that's why I say every other week, but I will try my hardest to get them out faster than that. But I'll explain that on my profile so check there if you're interested in stuff. And let's go!

**Littlebirdd:** Shhh. It totally doesn't mean what you think it means, if what you think it means is what I think you think it means. Yes, that was meant to be confusing. I'm all willing to hand out spoilers if you want them, but don't say anything! Because it totally doesn't mean anything. I'm bad at this :P Shush you.

**BookGeek890:** I know! Eek I'm so excited! I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for her to meet him so I can do all sorts of fun stuff. Yayyy for this. That's why I made chapter 2 so freakishly long. I figured you would be happier if I just jumped straight to her meeting Mr. Doctor Man

**CalicoKitty402:** I think cliffhangers were designed specifically for the point of torturing other people. But yes, cliffhangers! Bwahaha

**Avalin Rose Ellyot:** Thank you so much! I'm so happy, beyond freaking jumping for joy, that you love my story and you think my writing is good. Honestly I thought chapter 2 was kind of rubbish. I suck at writing any sort of pain or torment so it was hard and I'm so happy you liked it. Don't cry!

**ElysiumPhoenix:** I'll update as fast as I humanly can! Don't worry! I'm glad you like it and that you'll keep reading : )

**Mad Girl with a Keyboard:** Considering I thought that chapter was kind of meh, I'm glad you thought it was so amazing. She has been through so much! And to make it worse she's been through two lives now since she has all of Evangeline's memories. The Doctor will help her, all in good time. I'm awesome? You're awesome for reviewing! I also love your username : )

Chapter 3: Why Was I So Short?

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><p>"<em>If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?"<em>

_TS Eliot_

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><p>"It's alright, let go of her. You're safe now."<p>

The Doctor pulled my hands off of Yvonne's collar, holding them in his own and leading me a few steps away, as if afraid I might maul her if given the chance. He was smart; I totally would have. I noticed him look up at one of the guards who had brought me into the room and gesture towards the handcuffs that were beginning to chafe my wrists again. I had bruises and raw skin on my wrists from the sheer amount of times I had been cuffed roughly and jerked around by them. The guard must have given him the key to the cuffs because suddenly he was unlocking them and my hands were free, falling down to hang at my sides.

Holy hand grenades, I was looking up into the face of the Doctor. _The _freaking _Doctor_. How was this possible? I could have sworn there was at least another week until he was due to arrive. Had I been off by that much? It was the only explanation because he was clearly here now. He was looking down at me, his brows furrowed but a kind smile on his face, and examining my wrists and arms. He must not have liked what he saw, and I couldn't really blame him with all the marks I had on me now, because he got that look that I recognized from watching his face so often. His eyes grew dark and he frowned, and I could tell he wanted to rip Yvonne a new one for what she had done but he was staying calm. When he'd had enough of staring at my arms, he tried to give me a reassuring smile. "Are you okay?"

"I'm…" I managed to say once I found my voice, which had shrunken inside of me from the sheer shock of meeting the man I'd always dreamed of. I wanted to say I was fine, which was my go to answer no matter the situation, but I couldn't bring myself to say it at the moment. "You're the reason they brought me up here?" was all I could think to say, to ask. I wanted to be sure. "Am I free now?"

"Yes," he said, keeping his tone level. He glanced over at Yvonne, who was doing her best to ignore the situation entirely. "You are under my protection now. She can't do anything else to hurt you."

Without even realizing I'd been holding it, I let out a large breath and felt what had seemed to be a million pounds of weight disappear. I had known he was here to save me, but knowing that I was free now, that there would be no more Evangeline experimentation, was like finding my way out of a dark hole. I could breathe again. "Thank you," I managed to say, and then I looked over at Yvonne. "You look bitter, Hartman." Oh, how I wanted to gloat. "All those threats and promises of how I would be here forever until you could figure me out. And one lanky man in a suit comes in and suddenly you're not so tough. I wish…" I was going to tell her how much I couldn't wait for her to die again, but I realized I had probably wished death on her at least a million times since I'd been at Torchwood. What was equally as terrible? "I was going to say I wish a terribly painful death on you, but that just isn't good enough. Instead, I wish that, from now on, every table you ever sit at has uneven legs."

I heard the Doctor snort a little and Jackie, who I wasn't sure if was still going by Rose or not at this point, chided me as she walked out of Yvonne's office. "That's a terrible thing to wish on people. You'd never have a proper sit down ever again."

"Yeah, well, her and her scientist goons deserve it after all the put me through…" I mumble, still staring at Yvonne. Her face was still blank, but I noticed her roll her eyes just a little, apparently annoyed with how I was handling the situation and probably with the fact that she had been forced to release me. I was going to let it go, I really was, but seeing the lack of any feeling at all for what she had just broke something inside of me. "_God_, and you don't even care, do you? You don't feel any remorse whatsoever for the things you put me through, _do you_?" I heard my voice crack and felt my throat tighten, but I couldn't stop even though I wanted to. I didn't want to look weak in front of the Doctor, but I felt like I was falling apart. "You must think so little of me, that just because your _stupid_ data or whatever the fuck it is that tells you I don't exist that I'm not a person, I'm not important." I was vaguely aware of the fact that my voice was getting louder and I was yelling now. "Because to you the only answer when something is a mystery is to poke and prod it until it's broken. And I _hate_ Ed and Toupee but you ordered all of this and that makes you so much worse than them. You're just a blonde, big haired, stick up the ass, robot, Hartman. Queen and country my ass."

She looked pleased that she had gotten me so worked up and that freaking smirk was there again on her stupid, robot face. "Something that doesn't exist has no right to be treated like a person."

And that was my last straw. If the Doctor hadn't grabbed my shoulders when he did, I would have broken Yvonne's nose so fast she couldn't have seen it coming. Then I probably would have ripped her face off and killed her, and the Doctor would frown on that. "She's not worth it," the Doctor was saying as he held me back. His voice, still a shock to my system because he was _here_, was enough to bring me back to my senses. "Deep breaths. It's going to be okay. Look at me. Ignore her, and focus on me." His voice was commanding, but kind, and I found myself doing what he said and lifting my head to look into his face. As I stared at him, I began to realize just how tall he was. I mean, I knew he was tall from the show but he had at least a foot on me. It made me feel ridiculously short. Why did I have to be short? "She told me about you. Now I'm certain she didn't mean to. I find it hard to believe that she didn't know I would make her release you, given that she apparently knows me so well, but you're free now. No more tests, no more experiments. Just because you're a scientific anomaly doesn't mean that you're not important or that you deserve to be experimented on." He dug into his pocket and pulled out a little wand that instantly made my heart skip a beat, the Sonic Screwdriver. I'd had my own fake one back as Felicity, but this was the real thing and it was amazing. "This is my Sonic Screwdriver. It would take too long to explain right now. But would it be okay if I scanned you with it?" I flinched involuntarily at the idea of a scan, although I knew it wouldn't hurt me. "It's completely harmless. Don't worry; I wouldn't hurt you."

I would have believed him a million times over even if I hadn't know him already. Nodding, I gave him the okay to go ahead. Aiming the Sonic Screwdriver at my head, he pressed the button and it began making that buzzing sound it always made. He brought it down, waving it over me, and then looked at it. A frown formed and my heart fell. "Bad news?" I asked meekly, afraid of the answer.

The Doctor glanced at Yvonne again before looking back at me. "It says the same thing, that you can't possibly exist. You're not giving anything off: no heat, no radiation, no energy. Except you're here and clearly real. So why does it say you can't exist? That's not possible."

I felt my shoulders fall and any excitement I had slip away. "So they were right?" I had been really hoping that Yvonne was wrong, that it was all a mistake. But I guess that had never been a possibility, not with all the tests that they had run on me. And Torchwood could have been wrong, but it wasn't possible for the Doctor to be wrong as well. "I don't exist?"

"Clearly, you do exist. I wouldn't be able to touch you if you didn't." The Doctor as confused, which wasn't all that surprising because he was often confused at first, but it didn't give me a lot of hope. "We'll figure it out, I promise. Are you okay?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course she's not okay!" Jackie had wandered over by us while he was scanning me and now she had an appalled look on her face at the Doctor's question. "She looks like walking death, and she probably hasn't had a proper bathe in weeks."

"Do I smell that bad? I think they've let me take two showers while I was here. My roots are probably a mile long." Dying my hair wasn't something I had thought about while I was here. That should be an adventure, considering I'd never dyed my hair before, once I got out of here. "But I'm fine. I mean, my arm is throbbing and I'm starving because they haven't fed me a whole lot either," I said that while I glared daggers at the woman responsible, who was looking impatient with all our conversation. She really needed to get off her high horse. I could always knock her off it. I could sense Jackie wanted to argue that point some more, which I didn't mind. I loved Jackie. After my parents had divorced and my mother left, I had watched the episodes with Jackie in them over and over, trying to remind myself what a real mother was. But we didn't have time for her arguing right now. I knew that the ghost shift was coming up and that things would start to go down soon. I wasn't prepared for this; this had come up a lot faster than I had been expecting. "Honestly, though, there are bigger problems here. I have been trying to tell the bitch here for the last month that these ghost shifts are complete crap and a terrible idea. Anything that you have to build a skyscraper in order to check out is definitely a bad idea."

The Doctor was looking at me strangely again, like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "Finally, someone with common sense!" Giving my shoulder a squeeze, he left me to walk towards Yvonne. "Which brings me back to my point: So, you find the breech, probe it, the sphere comes through. Six hundred feet above London, bam. It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, 'oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe?' Nah, you think, 'let's make it bigger!'"

Jackie, who was still standing next to me, glanced at me, clearly confused. "You have any idea what he's on about?"

I shrugged, feigning similar confusion. "I believe he's trying to say that the ghost shift is very, very bad."

"It's a massive source of energy. If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent," Yvonne was arguing, not very well might I add, and I think she was starting to regret bringing the Doctor into this. "Look, you can see for yourself. Next ghost shift's in two minutes."

"Cancel it," the Doctor ordered, plain and simple. A storm flashed in his eyes, unnoticeable to Yvonne. I may have only just met him, but I've known him for a long time and I knew his faces. I knew when the storm was just below the surface.

"I don't think so."

His voice dropped slightly in pitch, threatening her with the possibility of what could happen if she didn't listen to him in just a few words. "I'm warning you, cancel it."

Still Yvonne didn't back off; she couldn't recognize the danger in the Doctor's eyes. "Oh, exactly as the legends would have it. The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of man."

Well, he should, if you asked me. He was an alien after all. Of course, no one asked and I couldn't say that. How could she not realize the Doctor was trying to help? Stupid.

"Let me show you." The Doctor started to walk towards one of the glass panels of Yvonne's office. He happened to glance my way and he stopped for a second, then walked over to me and grabbed my hand, making sure to take the one attached to my uninjured arm. His hand felt large against mine, and warm. He led me off to the side and motioned for Jackie to come join me. "Stay here. You're not wearing any shoes."

Shoes? Oh, right, he was going to break the glass. I looked down at my feet, which were bare because Torchwood had taken my shoes when I first got here. Sometimes they would give me socks if they felt like being decent, but for the most part I was barefoot, which went well with the turd-looking brown scrub pajamas they had made me wear. I didn't say anything and watched as he walked over to the panel, taking the Sonic Screwdriver out once more.

"Sphere comes through." The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the glass and activated it. Instantly the glass splintered where he had aimed and cracks began spreading outwards from the center as he talked. "But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension, splintered. And that's how the ghosts get through. That's how they get everywhere." The cracks slowly chipped their way through the glass, stretching so far that almost the entire pane was broken. "They're bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours. With the human race hoping, and wishing, and helping them along! But too many ghosts, and…"

"The world will shatter," I had meant to just think that in my head but I found myself saying it out loud as the Doctor touched his finger to the glass and it crumbled to the floor. I sneered at Yvonne. "Told you so."

The Doctor's head swung up to where I was standing. "You told her that the breech would cause this dimension to shatter? How could you have possibly known that?"

Shit. Come on, Evie, you have to be more careful. I had to watch what I said around the Doctor, or it would be obvious that I knew things I shouldn't have. I could play this off, though. I hoped. I was good at lying. "I didn't know _that_ was gonna happen but the ghosts gave me a bad feeling so I figured shit was going to hit the fan somehow." He looked more at ease about what I'd said, but he still seemed a little suspicious so I added, "It was a hunch. I'm good at prediction when bad things are going to happen. Nothing good ever happens to me so it's not hard." The suspicion disappeared only to be replaced by the stoic look he'd been giving Yvonne just a minute before. "Either way, Yvonne, I was right. This whole ghost shift was a shitty idea and kind of creepy, or at least I thought they were. You can't have a British Empire if you destroy the world."

The look Yvonne gave me was so hard and filled with hate that I swear she could have made my head explode if she wanted to. "Well, in that case, we'll have to be more careful." Going to stand in the middle of the room, she addressed the staff, sitting at their computers, around her. I was fairly certain that, by this point, they had all been turned into walking husks but I couldn't remember which ones were killed and which ones weren't. "Positions! Ghost shift in one minute."

Everyone at their computers began typing away furiously, all in sync with each other which sounded more than a little bit creepy. I remained where I stood, not wanting to accidentally step on any glass if I could avoid it since I already had enough problems, but the Doctor followed after her. "Ms. Hartman, I am asking you, please."

"We've done this a thousand times." Yvonne acted like she wasn't proud of that fact, and as if she didn't know she'd probably done it a thousand times more than that.

"Then stop at a thousand!"

Yvonne turned to face him, smug and defiant as ever. "We are in control of the ghosts. The levers can open the breech, but equally they can close it."

They stared at each other for what felt like an hour, a battle of wills through eye contact, and then the Doctor looked away and shrugged. "Okay." Without any more of an explanation, he turned and walked into Yvonne's office to grab a chair, which he dragged back out.

"Sorry?" The look on Yvonne's face was priceless, and something I wouldn't have missed for the world. For all she knew about the Doctor, she was evidently unprepared for his mood swings. Well, I shouldn't say mood swings because he was doing this on purpose, but it stunned her.

"Never mind. As you were."

"What, is that it?" She had obviously been expecting more of an argument from the last of the Time Lords.

"No! Fair enough. Said my bit." The Doctor plopped down into the chair he'd dragged out, giving her an obviously insincere grin. "Don't mind me. Any chance of a cup of tea?"

Still off to the side where he had told me to stand, I watched the exchange with a small smile on my face. It was bizarre to say the least to see the Doctor like this, in reality. Of course I knew him from the show and how quickly he could change his mind and his attitude and how easily he confused people. I knew how childish he could be, but this was real and it was nothing short of amazing to see how effortlessly he was able to wipe emotions from his face and change his entire persona just to throw people off. He was also much more childish in person than on the television.

"Ghost shift in twenty seconds," called the girl who looked like Martha, from next season. What was her name again? Started with an A… Adelaide? No, that was the Water on Mars lady. Adeola? I think that was it.

Still the Doctor sat there, looking quite pleased with himself and waiting for Yvonne to make her move. "Can't wait to see it!"

"You can't stop us, Doctor," Yvonne said, but it was clear she was growing suspicious and doubtful of her choice. I knew she would change her mind and shut it down, but what if she didn't? What if things didn't go according to the episode and she let the ghost shift go on? Would the Cybermen show up now before anyone was ready? Was Rose even in the sphere room yet?

"Yvonne, stop it," I found myself saying, worried now. That was just like me, to let myself get paranoid and doubt things. "I just survived all your crap. I really don't feel like dying because you decided to test limits."

Adeola began counting down from ten. The Doctor never wavered, merely raising an eyebrow at her as if to dare her to do it. Yvonne, on the other hand, began to dart her eyes back and forth between the Doctor and Adeola, who was down to a count of five now. She took another few seconds to weigh her options, and then she broke. "Stop the shift. I said stop."

I was relieved, though I wasn't quite sure why. Everything was going according to the episode so far, so it made sense that they would continue to go that way. Why was I being paranoid? As long as nothing happened that wasn't supposed to, then everything should just go the way the episode did. It was probably just nerves. And pain, because my arm was still throbbing quite a bit.

"And someone clear up this glass," I heard Yvonne say before she started wandering back into her office. As she passed the Doctor, who had just stood up from his chair, she gave him a sly smirk. "They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess."

"You don't even know," I mumbled to myself as I followed them in behind Jackie. I wasn't going to be left alone out here with the dead but still alive Cybermen people.

Yvonne sat down at her desk as the Doctor wheeled the chair he'd stolen back to its place and sat down as well, placing his white Conversed feet up top of the desk and leaning back. He looked quite comfortable. What I wouldn't have killed for a nice bed, or even Regina's couch.

Jackie, who probably felt out of place with all this going on, turned to me as the Doctor and Yvonne started to talk. "You poor thing," she said with a sigh, reaching up to brush some of my matted hair out of my face. "You look like you've been run ragged. What did they do to you?"

"Oh, you know… Just a bunch of tests and scans." I shrugged. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth. They had done more than that. I just couldn't… I don't know. I didn't want to think about it. I noticed the Doctor's eyes shift towards us for a brief second before he focused back on Yvonne, and I knew he was listening. I just wanted to forget about the whole Torchwood thing as fast as I could. "I mean, I'm pretty sure my arm is infected or something. But otherwise, it was just like being at the doctors, but like a million times worse. Although I broke Ed's nose, so that made it better."

She gave me a look of approval and pride as she continued to try and straighten my hair out at least a little. It made me smile, though I tried to hide it so she wouldn't ask. Jackie had only just met me, and she was being far more motherly than my own mother had ever been towards me. I had always adored Jackie; she was so accepting of her daughter's need to run away with an alien. "Don't you have any family out there lookin' for you?"

My smile fell. "I don't have a family, never did." I honestly had no idea what to say about the whole family thing. Felicity had a family, even if it was a broken and lonely one, but Evangeline had grown up without one. And I guess I was technically Felicity still, stuck in Evangeline's body, but Evangeline was beginning to feel like me, who I was supposed to be, as well, and I didn't know if that was just because I was stuck in her body or if there was some other reason. But was I supposed to give my past as Felicity, which is more familiar to me, or do I give Evangeline's past, which is who I am in this world but not who I remember growing up as? Almost two months in this world and I still had no idea what the hell I was doing with all of this. Hopefully, the Doctor would be able to help me with that at some point. But Torchwood knew Evangeline's background, so if I started saying things that contradicted what Yvonne knew then things might just get worse and I didn't want to deal with her asking me a bunch of questions right now. I didn't need the Doctor getting suspicious of me five seconds after meeting him. "I grew up in foster care. I have Regina, and she's not related but she's the only family I have. I'm sure she's looking for me. Although, knowing Torchwood," and I shot a dirty glare at Yvonne when I said that, "They probably told her I was dead or something. I just hope she's okay without me. And I hope she's taking care of Mephistopheles, because if I'm not there then no one really takes care of him. I hope she's remembering to feed him."

"Who's Mephi… Mephistoph… Who's that?" Jackie looked confused now. I could tell it wasn't a name she was familiar with, but it wasn't surprising.

I couldn't help but laugh at the way she tried to pronounce it. That was the reaction from a lot of people the first time they found out what I had named our cat. "Mephistopheles. He's our cat."

The Doctor dropped his legs from Yvonne's desk and turned his chair towards me, an eyebrow raised. "You named your cat Mephistopheles?"

"Yeah, Regina didn't really go for it, though, but he was my cat so I didn't give her a choice." I smiled a bit at that, remembering when Evangeline had first brought him Mephistopheles after finding him abandoned in an alley. It was weird for me because the memories felt like they belonged to me, but I knew that they didn't. "We read part of _Faust_ in high school and I liked his character a lot. Plus, it's a kick ass name, and Mephistopheles is sometimes portrayed as the devil and our cat is sort of like Satan so it fit."

He nodded with one of his goofball grins, looking at least slightly impressed, and turned back to Yvonne, who was pulling something up on her laptop. Rajesh's voice could be heard over the speakers on it. "Yvonne? I think you should see this. We've got a visitor. Don't know who she is but, funny enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor."

And in enters Rose. I could see the Doctor trying to keep a straight face as Yvonne, realizing just how tricky the Doctor could be, turned the laptop around to show him. On the screen was a video chat with Rajesh, with Rose sitting next to him in a white lab coat. "She one of yours?" Yvonne asked, though it was obvious she already knew the answer.

The Doctor made a face and shook his head, feigning ignorance. "Never seen her before in my life." You could tell Jackie wanted to smack him one for that.

"Good. Then we can have her shot."

"Oh, all right, then," said the Doctor with a sigh, pulling his feet once more of Yvonne's desk and sitting up straight. "It was worth a try. That's… That's Rose Tyler."

Rose, looking sheepish, waved at him from the screen. "Sorry. Hello."

The Doctor waved back while Yvonne looked a Jackie, not understanding. "Well, if that's Rose Tyler, who's she?"

"Obviously her mother, or maybe an aunt. But I wanna say mother." I scratched my head, which is in dire need of a wash, as I gestured at Jackie's face, hoping it wasn't coming off too rudely. "Can't you see the resemblance?"

The Doctor gave a nod of approval as Jackie confirmed the hypothesis that I already knew was true. "She's right. I'm her mother."

"Oh, you travel with her mother?" The smug beyond belief look was back on Yvonne's face. I'm sure it made her thrilled to see the Doctor, who had done nothing but harass her and cause problems for her since he arrived, in such a situation. The Doctor, defender of the Earth and chief alien authority of the universe, couldn't travel without a chaperone.

"He kidnapped me." And Jackie still seemed peeved at the fact that she had been taken for an unwanted ride. I wished I could tell her that she wouldn't regret it in the end, but that would be spoilers. Mental note: don't say spoilers. I really didn't want to turn into a River Song. They had really screwed her character up. Plus, it might be weird if we were both running around saying that.

The Doctor was clearly uncomfortable with the way that made him look. "Please, when Torchwood comes to write my complete history, don't tell people I traveled through time and space with her mother."

Yvonne had a good laugh at that, and I didn't have to guess that she once again thought of herself as being above the Doctor in the hierarchy of things. Her eyes turned to settle on me then and I found myself wanting to break her nose, much like I had done to Ed's. I couldn't stand it when she looked at me. If we were talking about a hierarchy, a scale, it was plain and clear that she thought I was on the bottom and that I was nothing but the gum on the bottom of her great and fantastic shoe. She had always looked at me in a way that said she was granting me the privilege of dealing with me. And I think that's what I hated the most about her. I hated condescending people and I don't think I've ever met anyone who condescended as well as her. "And what about her?" By her, I assumed she meant the thing that shouldn't exist. "Did you send her to infiltrate us, Doctor? You've seemed to have taken quite the interest in her. Let her stay here, and we could figure her out for you."

In a flash, the blank look on the Doctor's face grew cold and furious as he stood up and locked eyes with her. "I've never met her before, as far as I know. You know, time travel, crisscrossing timelines. And if I've taken an interest in her it's only because she's interesting. Why wouldn't she be? She's a person, and every person is interesting. But interesting is not a synonym for wrong, Ms. Hartman. It is not an _excuse_ to harm people in an attempt to help science, or whatever it is you claim to do here. I am going to say this once and only once: stay away from her. You will not harm her again, physically or mentally or emotionally or cosmically or any other kind of –ally that you can think of."

Yvonne stood to meet the Doctor's eyes. She opened her mouth to rebut, but she closed it again when she happened to glance briefly into the other room. Ignoring the Doctor, she walked around her desk and out through her office door. "Excuse me? Everyone? I thought I said stop the ghost shift. Who started the program?" From in her office, you could see the employees sitting at their computers, typing away at a speed that outpaced my own, and I was quick. They kept on typing, even with her yells to stop. On the sides, the breech levers began moving up on their own. "Who's doing that? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone."

Looking grave, the Doctor stepped away from his chair and walked out to join Yvonne, Jackie and I right behind him. My heart was beginning to race, knowing what was coming in just a few moments. Yvonne's yells were doing nothing to stop the coming ghost shift. Two men in lab coats, apparently the only two employees in the room who hadn't been eaten by Cybermen, took their sweet time in rushing to try and pull the levers down, to no avail. As they looked at Yvonne in a panic, wondering what the hell they were supposed to do now, the Doctor took notice of one of the people at the computers and strode over to Adeola. "What's she doing?"

Following the Doctor's cue, Yvonne jogged over to meet him. "Ade, step away from the desk." The Doctor snapped his fingers in her face, trying to get her attention. "Listen to me. Step away from the desk."

Being careful to avoid the glass on the floor, I padded across the floor to them, watching. This was so much crazier in real life. I couldn't believe this was real. And they had no idea what was coming.

"She can't hear you," the Doctor said in a low voice, giving up on distracting the woman from the computer. "They're overriding the system. We're going into ghost shift."

While everyone stared at the wall where the breech was, I couldn't help but stare at Adeola. I looked around at the other employees, trying to confirm the idea in my head. I had never noticed it before when I watched the show, but… "Shouldn't they only have one earpiece? Everyone has one, except these guys have two."

The Doctor looked my way for a second and gave me a partial smile, before letting it fade and focusing on the problem at hand once more. "You're right; good observation. It's controlling them." Internally, I had a bit of a fangirl moment. He said I had a good observation. So far, he seemed to be at least a little impressed with me. If I kept this up, there was no way he would pass up the chance to take me as a companion. But no one cared about how happy that made me. They were all too busy saving the world. "I've seen this before." Yep, on Pete's world, except it wasn't called that yet. Pulling his Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket, he grimaced before pointing it at Adeola's earpieces. "Sorry. I'm so sorry." Pressing the button on the screwdriver, he shut down the system in their head. Adeola gave the most horrifying, ear piercing scream I'd ever heard, and collapsed at the same time as the others.

And she was dead. Just like that. Not that she'd really been alive before but… This was the first dead person, dead body, I'd seen. Okay, Evangeline or Felicity or whoever I was now, this was not the time to freak out. Traveling with the Doctor, I was bound to see a lot of dead people. It was just a side effect of traveling with him. Don't freak out.

Jackie was accusing the Doctor of being a murderer, and of course he had no time for that. "No, someone else did that long before I got here."

"But you killed them!" That was sort of how I felt right now. Except I knew the Doctor hadn't wanted to, but it was still bizarre to just see them lying there… Were they still there later on when we came back? Oh, that would be even weirder.

"Jackie, I haven't got time for this!" He was still tapping away at the keyboard, looking for some way of shutting down the ghost shift.

"What're those earpieces?" Yvonne was asking now. "They're standard comms devices. How does it control them?"

Moving to a different computer, the Doctor shook his head. "Trust me. Leave them alone." I really didn't want to see whatever disgusting earworm looking thing came out of Adeola's head so I turned away. What did I do now? The Cybermen would be coming, and I didn't want to run the risk of getting shot because I stood a centimeter too far to the right and they hit me by accident. Well, I guess it wouldn't be an accident for a Cyberman but it would for me. Where to stand so I wouldn't be in the way? I looked around while the Doctor tried finding the source of the system hijack and Yvonne panicked like a little girl. Who's on top of the hierarchy now, Bitch-Vonne. It was a good thing she was going to die, because my exhausted brain could not come up with anything better to call her than that.

"You two stay here!" the Doctor ordered as he and Yvonne ran from the room, following the direction the Sonic Screwdriver pointed them in.

I grabbed Jackie by the arm and brought her with me to stand in the corner, out of the way. "Why are we over here?" she wanted to know. I had forgotten how many questions she could ask.

"I just have a bad feeling about this," I told her, figuring that would suffice. "And since nothing good in my life _ever_ happens, I'm usually right. And you're one of the first people I've met in a while that I haven't wanted to kill and I actually like, so I would prefer that nothing happens to you."

"I don't understand. What's going on?" Poor Jackie, she was so confused. She wasn't used to getting dragged along on the Doctor's adventures and dealing with alien hordes. Her only experiences really had been getting attacked by mannequins and Santa Clauses, and watching an alien spaceship get blown to smithereens.

But a panicking Jackie was a useless Jackie. "It's not like I know the future, Jackie," I said, though I felt bad for lying to her. "Just stay calm. "

"But Rose is down there! Oh, I hope she's safe." And the calm thing wasn't going to happen, I could tell.

I gave her hand a squeeze, using my good arm because squeezing with the bad one hurt the infected missing chunk of flesh. "That's your daughter, right?" Like I didn't know. She nodded. "If she's anything like you, I'm sure she'll be fine. We just have to hope that the people we care about are okay. And that's all we can do right now."

While we talked, which was mostly me trying to keep her from freaking out and simultaneously trying to keep myself from freaking out because I knew what was coming, we waited for a few minutes. That was all it took before I could hear pounding footsteps in the hall, heading our way. A few seconds after that, a handful of Cybermen marched into the room, the Doctor and Yvonne in the middle of the group. "Step away from the machines!" the Doctor yelled, knowing the Cybermen would kill them if they didn't. "Do what they say! Don't fight them!" He looked our way and gave an approving nod, a signal to stay where we were and away from the metal machines. "Don't shoot!" But the Cybermen shot anyway, killing two in lab coats who were holding onto the levers.

"What are they?" Jackie asked, her voice shaking.

A Cyberman turned towards us, addressing her question. How kind of him. "We are the Cybermen. The ghost shift will be increased to 100%." Turning back to face the breech, the Cybermen leader used some sort of machine telekinesis or something to move the levers up by themselves.

The computer reported out that the ghost shift was online, and the Doctor grimaced against the bright light of the breech opening. "Here come the ghosts."

Jackie had moved to stand up near the Doctor and I followed, watching as the ghosts appeared out of the breech, eerily Cyberman shaped. I heard Jackie ask the Doctor about them, but I couldn't hear much else over the sound of blood pounding in my ears. This was real. The Cybermen were real. The ghosts, which were also Cybermen, were real. I was going to be in the Battle at Canary Wharf, and people would die. I was going to watch people die, more people. And, if I made a wrong move… I could die. If I stepped the wrong way, made a wrong turn, said the wrong thing to one of the Cybermen, then I could be shot or exterminated or a multitude of horrible things once this all went down. Was I prepared for that? Short answer, no, I didn't think so.

"All the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world."

As the ghosts began to materialize and solidify into Cybermen, I couldn't help but turn to Yvonne. "Fucking hell, Hartman," I found myself snapping at her. "This is all your fault. You and your stupid need to bother things. Maybe instead of experimenting on me and injecting me with your bullshit, you should have been trying to figure out what the hell you were messing with. You don't build skyscrapers just to look at fucking holes!"

Yvonne looked at me, and I could sense that at least part of her understood what I was saying. "They're invading the whole planet."

The Doctor shook his head, the look on his face even graver than Yvonne's. "It's not an invasion. It's too late for that. It's a victory."

A loud beeping sound drew our attention from the Cybermen army in front of us to one of the computers, saying it its robotic monotone, "Sphere activated. Sphere activated."

It might have been childish and stupid in the face of the danger I was now in, but I couldn't help but be sort of jealous of the sphere. It got to exist all of a sudden, and I was still stuck in what the hell am I because apparently I don't exist land.

The Doctor's face was one of pure surprise, and not in the good way. He stepped forward, addressing the Cyber Leader once more. "What I don't understand is, Cybermen don't have the technology to build a void ship. That's way beyond you. How did you create that sphere?"

"The sphere is not ours." The Doctor's face fell, along with Yvonne's. Even her, with her limited mental capacity and her large capacity for being a bitch, understood that the sphere meant there was another alien race invading her Torchwood. "The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown.

And as the Doctor pondered what the hell was in that sphere and Jackie worried about Rose, all I could think to say was, "Rajesh is gonna die." And I felt bad because he had at least tried to help me, even if he was completely useless and a waste of space, and that was more than anyone else had tried to do.

But as much as I felt bad for Rajesh's unavoidable death, I had another thought floating around in my head and making my pulse race. Was I going to die, too?

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><p>Yay! Chapter 3 down! I didn't think I was going to finish this until Sunday to be honest but I guess I had writer's splurge :P Don't forget to review!<p> 


	4. 4: Fairly Determined Not to Die

Hello my lovelies : ) I'm back again! I just want to make one thing clear before I get too far into this story: I start the new school semester in a few days and I am taking some ridiculous classes this semester so it is entirely, and highly, possible that I won't be able to update except for every other week so I don't want you to get used to this updating habit I have going on. I'm hoping to finish off the Doomsday episode before school starts, so this chapter and one more because I decided that I'm going to split regular singular episodes into three chapters each, and episodes that have a continuation into two chapters each so I can get through episodes without taking forever. I'm going to try to put out a chapter a week if I can, but I can't make any promises and a chapter every other week is the best I can guarantee at this moment. Like I said, I'll be posting an update schedule on my profile along with anything about Evangeline, like her looks and her clothes when she finally gets to pick out clothes. A very large thank you to Mad Girl with a Keyboard, OwlLover123, Avalin Rose Ellyot, Elysium Phoenix, and MinecraftLover00 for reviewing! I love you guys for reviewing, and even those of you who don't review and just favorite and follow or even don't do anything at all but read, I love you all too! You're all so amazing. As always, thank you to Heycassbut for being my new best friend and helping me plan this story and without her this story would not exist and you should check out her Doctor Who fic Chasing Cars because it's awesome. Now I'm going to stop blabbing and get on with it, so read and revie and enjoy : )

**Mad Girl with a Keyboard:** They did meet! I was waiting for that :P I couldn't wait for them to meet and start interacting. I don't know if this story is perfect in every way, but I'm so glad you think so. Keep your eyes peeled! It's coming up soon (but I won't tell you when). When I was planning this story, I really wanted to write one of those "Whovian from our world gets placed in DW world" story (I don't know what they're called!) but I wanted it to be different because I know the idea has been done to death. And I'm fairly happy with how this story turned out and I think it's pretty different from other fics with that premise. I'm so happy everyone is loving this story and Evangeline because I worked so hard for so long on trying to get this up and running, and Heycassbut has to take a good chunk of the credit, but it makes me so happy that it's turning out well. You're so amazing and thank you for always reviewing the chapters : )

**MinecraftLover00:** Thank you! She definitely does lack in the manners area. She's a bit rude, but what do you expect after being experimented on and tortured for a month? I love that about her though. I'm trying really hard to make her a strong character and have her be snarky and impossible without turning her into too much of a bitch or the sarcastic comic relief. I'm glad everyone is liking her so far. I worked really hard on her.

**OwlLover123:** Suspense is torture, I know. I love fanfictions more than anything but I think the thing that bothers me most is the fact that I can't look up spoilers :P I'm the person who has to look up the ending to something before I can get far into it because I hate surprises and I hate the suspense. I think that's why I'm more of a writer than a reader: I know the ending to my own story so I don't have to deal with the suspense. But I love doing it to others so we shall keep on with the suspense : ) Thank you for your kind words. They mean so much to me.

**Avalin Rose Ellyot:** I am evil. I admit it. Maybe not so much as a Dalek but I'm totally evil. And awesome apparently :P I won't say whether she punches Yvonne or not but she definitely wants to. I always wanted to, too. I could never stand that woman -_-

**Elysium Phoenix:** Trust me, I would love to deck Yvonne. I hate her. She has an annoying face and the way she talks makes me want to rip my ears out. Specifically, in Army of Ghosts when she first greets the Doctor and she's just all "Hooray!" and the way she says hooray… I can't stand that word anymore. But, hey, at least she dies. Until next time : )

Chapter 4: Fairly Determined Not to Die

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><p>"<em>You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear."<em>

_Sammy Davis, Jr._

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><p>We were stuck. The stupid ghost shift room was filled with Cybermen and we were stuck here. Surrounded by Cybermen. Cybermen who could just raise their arm and shoot you if they felt like it. Well, I shouldn't say felt because they didn't have feelings because they were robots but if they thought the logical answer was to shoot you, they were going to shoot you. And trust me, I wasn't giving them any reasons to shoot. Just because the Doctor's party didn't got shot on the episode didn't mean that I couldn't. No thanks. I was in enough pain as it was.<p>

Jackie, like the panicky caring mother that she was, kept bothering the Doctor about her daughter. "What's down there? She was in that room with the sphere. What's happened to Rose?" There were tears in her eyes, tears of fright and worry that something had happened to her child.

The Doctor was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed as he tried to think of a way to get us out of this situation. Or maybe he was just thinking of a way to get them out of this situation. There was no guarantee that he would take me with him once this was all over, or that he even though of me as part of the group. For all I knew, he saw me as just a random person he had managed to save. Without opening his eyes, he sighed. "I don't know."

She was expecting him to do the same thing he always had done before, give an answer. Tell her Rose was fine, that the sphere wasn't dangerous, that they would survive this ordeal. He let her down because he didn't know. It wasn't his fault; he couldn't have known that the sphere wasn't associated with the Cybermen. He couldn't know that Daleks were hiding in the void ship. And he couldn't know that Rose was perfectly okay. But Jackie was a mother, a better one than mine had ever been, and she began to cry out of fear that her daughter might be dead.

He didn't seem to be able to stand the thought that he was the cause of her grief and he stood from the wall, walking over to her side. "I'll find her. I brought you here. I'll get you both out, you and your daughter. Jackie, look at me. Look at me." He waited until she lifted her head, her eyes red from tears. "I promise you. I give you my word."

And he had forgotten about me. I wasn't surprised. I was a girl he had only known for about an hour, and he had other things to worry about, like saving the love of his life. I was standing off to the side, leaning against my own wall and rubbing my arm. It was still killing me, throbbing with a probable infection and no one had ever gave me any pain killers so it wasn't like I could just pop some and be all better. Although that was probably for the best, because I was already feeling a little woozy and I had to really try to focus or the room began to spin very slowly. I figured it was due partially to the exhaustion and the pain, and partially to all the excitement. I had never thought that I would ever be standing in the same room as the Doctor in my entire life. I had never thought the Doctor would actually exist and be a real person. Not to mention the Cybermen, who looked much more real and intimidating and less like bad robots with sticks up their butts. And those Torchwood guys… The Cybermen had just shot them, and now they were dead, just lying there on the floor. No one had even bothered or been able to clean them up and move them somewhere else. They didn't show that in the episode. I was beginning to suspect that real life Doctor Who was much more gruesome than on TV. But still… It was the only choice I had.

That was when he turned to me, the serious stare on his face unchanging. "And you," he said, stepping over to where I was standing. "I promise you that I will get you out of here as well. I swear, I will save you."

So he hadn't forgotten about me. It was a relief, I had to say. Because as much as I was trying to be strong, I really had no freaking clue how to get out of this if he left me behind. And I really didn't fancy dying today. Or any day really. But especially not today; I wasn't about to let Yvonne be the reason I died. That would be sort of like letting her win, and I was nothing if not competitive so there was no way I was going to let her do anything of the sort. I opened my mouth to thank him, for promising to save me and also from being the reason they had stopped running tests on me, but I couldn't get the words out. The room suddenly spun viciously around in my head, and I lost my footing. I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared to fully face plant into the floor but I felt strong arms on my waist, holding me steady. When the shadows behind my eyelids stopped spiraling and I sensed that the room would be still once again, I slowly opened my eyes. Like before, I found the Doctor, his eyebrows furrowed in concern and his eyes—eyes that, to this day, I can never seem to find the words to describe—scanning over my face, holding onto me. I felt my stomach flip and a strong urge to scream that I had to force down as my inner fangirl wanted to relish in the moment. But I couldn't; this was real life now and there was no time to ask for autographs.

"I never asked your name." His question, asked as his brown eyes focused on my own blue and grey ones, took me off guard.

I hadn't been expecting him to ask that, although I guess it was one of the most logical things to ask if he was planning on protecting me. I supposed he couldn't just call me "You" anymore. "Felic-" I stopped. Crap, I'd thought I had that under control. I couldn't be giving out Felicity as my name anymore; it wasn't who I was now. Clearing my throat, I tried again and hoped he would let the slip go. "My name is Evangeline. Evangeline Blackstone. But you can call me Evie."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then gave me one of his goofball grins. I found myself smile, in spite of the crisis situation at hand. It amazed me how he could smile at a time like this. Didn't he know the world was ending? Of course he did; that's what made him amazing. "It's fantastic to meet you, Evangeline Blackstone. Bit like a story, that name. It suits you well. Well, Evie, my name is the Doctor and I'm going to save your life."

He was so much like a child, yet so much like the old man that he was, with scars carved into his eyes from the terrible things he'd seen. At that moment, I found myself wondering if I could be like him, if I could see all the things he saw every day and still find reasons to hope and smile when it was all over. "Just 'the Doctor'?" I had to ask, because I had to pretend like I didn't know who he was already. And I refused to follow the pattern and ask him "Doctor Who?"

"Yep," he said, popping the "p" on the end and I swear my heart almost skipped a beat. For the love of… Get it together, Evie. You could die, and you're internally squealing over a man. No, I was not going to be that girl. "Just 'the Doctor.'" In the space of a millisecond, his grin vanished, to be replaced by a frown. "I'm sorry, Evie, for not getting you out of here sooner. I should have come back earlier, should have known that something was wrong. The ghosts weren't s'posed to exist. If I had realized… I'm thick, and I didn't stop this early enough. I could have prevented all the experiments they did on you, and I could have stopped the Cybermen long before now."

I knew he was about to blame himself and, to be fair, I sort of blamed him too. I knew that he wasn't supposed to show up until the episode, and I had thought I was okay with that. I didn't want to blame him, but he was supposed to be time sensitive and whatever. If he had only come back to London earlier, even just a week earlier, and I wouldn't have had my arm torn apart. I wouldn't be facing possibly imminent death by Cybermen and Daleks. But I also wouldn't be running the chance of traveling with the Doctor… Was it worth it, just for a chance to see the stars? If I died today, could I say that it would have been worth it? "No, Doctor," I found myself saying. Whatever I felt, and I wasn't even sure how I felt, I couldn't let him believe that I thought it was his fault. I couldn't let him blame himself. I didn't want to be the reason something got screwed up today because he felt guilty. Besides, maybe I should have been blaming the Doctor Who creators. They were the ones who made the episode after all. "It's not your fault. You didn't know; you couldn't have. Hell, no one knew I was here. It's not a big deal."

I don't think he believed me when I said that. I didn't even believe me. I could say that it wasn't a big deal, but it wasn't true. It was a big deal, a rather large one. Not that he didn't save me sooner, but that this had even happened to me at all. What had happened to me was a big deal, and I couldn't deny that. I was exhausted and, in the stupid crap-colored brown scrub pajama things they had forced me to wear with the short sleeves, I could see massive amount of bruises going up and down my arms from where I had been injected with things. The bandaged wound on my right arm ached and throbbed, feeling sort of like a drum that someone was beating on too hard. I hadn't looked in a mirror in the time that I'd been at Torchwood, but I imagined I looked about as bad as I felt. I couldn't even look down at myself without being reminded of everything they had done to me. I still even had some slight alligator skin going on in certain spots from the extreme reaction I'd had to whatever they had injected me with that one time. And I think he knew that I was lying to him about being fine, because he looked down at the bandaged arm I was still rubbing, trying somehow to make the pain go away, and gently grabbed the hand I was rubbing with. "That won't help," he said, and I could hear the strain in his voice as his eyes scanned over all the bruises that I had to go with it. "What did they do? Yvonne told me that they had been running tests on you, but she hadn't gone into specifics." He gestured towards the bandage.

"They, uh…" My voice caught in my throat as I went to tell him. I hadn't talked to anyone about my experience at Torchwood yet, and I hadn't imagined that it would be this hard. I was struggling to find words to explain it without screaming and dropping the F bomb a hundred times because it was just so… How did I calmly explain something that made my insides boil? "They, uh… Bitch Face over there said they needed a part of me that they could… They could test apart from me…" I had to keep stopping, trying to come up with ways to say what I wanted to say. "She said it was so they didn't break me, or something. So they… cut out a piece of my arm, of my skin… I think it's infected now, but they didn't really care. I think they were testing to see how fast I would heal or something like that." I saw his eyes flash in anger that they had even done something like that and I found myself shrugging. He couldn't be distracted by rage, not today. "But it's fine… Yeah, it's fine. I'll be fine once this is over and I can get out of here. Fine, yeah. Of course, I don't know where I'll go… Regina probably thinks I'm dead."

"I'll get you out of here." He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, trying to be reassuring. It helped somewhat, to my surprise.

We both looked up as we heard metallic Cybermen footsteps. One of the Cybermen, the one who seemed to be the leader but I really wasn't sure why since they all looked the same to me, marched into Yvonne's office. Discreetly, the Doctor wandered over that way to be able to hear the conversation. I followed behind, for multiple reasons. For whatever reason, it just felt like the thing to do. And even though I had seen this episode who knows how many times, it was different in real life. I found myself hearing things and seeing things that I had never noticed before, and it was almost like this was the first time I was really looking at the episode. Well, not an episode anymore. On the same note, I figured the Doctor always survived these things and if I was going to _not_ get myself killed, the safest place to be was probably by him.

The Cyberman soldiered his, or its, way up to Yvonne's desk and stopped. "You will talk to your central world authority and order global surrender." I hated those robotic voices. It was just so metallic and ringing and ugh. I couldn't even use a better word than ugh. I just hated it. I was dreading meeting the Daleks, mostly because they were terrifying and would zap you without a second thought but also because their voices were just as bad.

If possible, Yvonne looked more annoyed and snobby than usual. She was mad about the fact that she had been wrong, the ghost hadn't been harmless whatsoever. If she survived, which she wouldn't, she would be tanked by Torchwood and fired beyond fired. Or at least that's what I thought. I was assuming that there was someone above her, and maybe there wasn't. But even if it didn't mean getting fired, the world would never forgive her and her group for what they had done to them. And that was just as bad. I could understand why Yvonne was pissed. There wasn't a trace of fear on her face as she snapped at the Cyberman Leader, "Oh, do some research." I could almost hear the choice words she probably would have added onto that statement if she'd had the time and wasn't being threatened by a massive robot army. "We haven't got a central world authority." I was surprised that she wasn't trying to pass herself off as the authority, considering how important she thought her and Torchwood were.

"You have now. I will speak on all global wavelengths." Without missing a beat, the Cyberman set itself up to broadcast over every wavelength in the world. It had been awhile since I had seen the episode, but I vaguely remembered the people they had showed, scared out of their minds as they watched the announcement on their televisions as the Cybermen in their homes stood over them.

Next to me, the Doctor slipped on the 3D glasses he pulled out of his jacket pocket. I had to hold back a grin. I loved those glasses. I even had a shirt at home I had gotten off of Teefury that showed him in those glasses. They were one of my favorite things, besides the hair, about the Tenth Doctor. I had never really realized before but the glasses were something that had disappeared after Matt Smith took over as Eleven. He glanced at the Cyber Leader through the red and blue plastic lenses for a moment, while the robot alien began its speech. "This broadcast is for humankind. Cybermen now occupy every landmass on this planet. But you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex, and class, and color, and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us."

Didn't that just sound perfect? As the Cyberman spoke, the Doctor noticed something going on outside and quietly wandered into Yvonne's office to stand near the window. Jackie and I followed after him, wanting to take a look at the commotion happening down on the ground. Yvonne, having had noticed the problem outside at the same time the Doctor did, joined so that we were all staring out the window. Below us, the whole of London was in chaos. We were so high up that it was hard to see, but cars had been abandoned on the streets as people ran for cover. Flames engulfed parts of the city and a thick layer of smoke covered the buildings and greyed out the air. It was faint, but you could hear the collective screams of the innocent London people as they either ran for their lives or died at the hands of one of the millions of Cybermen that now walked the Earth. Although the Cyberman could show no reaction, it seemed to be confused. "I ordered surrender." As a robot, the concept that not everyone would just follow orders was something it couldn't grasp.

"They're not taking instructions. Don't you understand?" the Doctor yelled, angry once more at how the metal man could have even thought that. "You're on every street, you're in their homes. You've got their children. Of course they're gonna fight."

From the top of the Torchwood tower, I could see the estate that Regina's flat was at. The building looked relatively unharmed, but that didn't mean the Cybermen hadn't invaded its walls. "I hope Regina's okay," I said softly to myself. The thought hadn't occurred to me until now that she might have been kill or worse, upgraded, by the Cybermen. Would she still be there when I got out of here? The idea that I could go home to an empty flat and a missing, or a dead, Regina made it hard to breathe. I turned my eyes away from the scene towards Yvonne, who was taking it all it with a horrified look on her face. "You do realize, Hartman, that this is all your fault. The world is dying, and it's your fault."

She turned to look at me, her look cold once more. "You seem to be taking this well, Evangeline."

"It would have been so easy to just crack your skull against the glass." I let my voice drop, the rage I felt rolling through me for her dripping out into my words. "Don't think I wasn't tempted. If I'm taking this well, it's only because this, even this monstrosity of a situation that you unleashed, is better than the _hell_ you put me through. And for what? For your pathetic science, for your crappy British Empire? I only regret, Yvonne, that I wasn't able to rip your face apart like I dreamed about for an entire month. I broke Ed's nose, and I fucking loved it. I would do it again if I could. I'm just sad I didn't get to break Toupee's so those idiots could match. But I wish I had gotten the opportunity to do the same to yours, because I promise I wouldn't have stopped with your nose." I felt the Doctor's hand on my shoulder again, pulling me back from her before I could maul her, which I was incredibly tempted to do. I resisted. "I hope they kill you, Hartman. I hope they cut you in half and devour you whole. I can't wait to watch you burn, just like London is doing and it's _all your fault_. And so help me, if I find out that something happened to Regina because of this, because of you, I will come back and find your rotting carcass and play fucking soccer with your head." His hand was on my hand, suddenly next to my face. I had wanted to punch her, to knock her lights out, but I hadn't planned on actually doing it. Would it have mattered? Would it have changed anything?

Did I care?

Forcing my hand back down to my side, the Doctor put his other arm around my shoulders and steered me off to the side and away from her. He faced me, his look stern and scolding. "Evie, I know you're upset and what she did to you can never be undone. I don't expect you to forgive her, ever. But you're safe now. She won't hurt you. And no matter how horribly she treated you, death is never the answer. Wishing it on someone doesn't make the pain go away, and her death won't fix what she's done. Be better than her, Evangeline Blackstone. I know you can."

"Maybe I don't want to be better!" I heard myself say. I wasn't planning on saying that. What if the Doctor thought less of me because I wanted to kill her? But once I started I couldn't stop. "Maybe I just want her to feel the pain I felt constantly for the last month? Maybe I don't want to 'rise above'. Maybe I'm just not a better person, Doctor."

He was looking at me strangely, and I couldn't figure out why. Was I a disappointment now because I was bitter and vengeful? The look on his face, the slightly raised eyebrow and the frown, sort of reminded me of how someone looks at a puzzle they can't piece together, frustrated and interested all at the same time. Was that what I was to him, a puzzle?

I didn't get a chance to ask him, and I wasn't even sure if I would have. One of the other Cybermen marched into the room, stopping in front of the Cyber Leader. "Scans detect unknown technology within sphere chamber," it reported, in that weird nasally robot voice.

"Cybermen will investigate. Units 1065 and 1066 will investigate the sphere chamber."

"We obey," with orders, the lesser Cyberman turned around and left.

The Cyber Leader turned towards the laptop on Yvonne's desk, still facing outwards from when Rajesh called about Rose. Ah, poor Rajesh. He should be dead by now. I felt sorry for the man because he had tried to help me, but there was no helping him now. It felt like eons ago that I last saw him. "Units open visual link." The laptop screen flickered briefly before a clear image of a Torchwood hallway appeared. "Visual contact established."

It was clear from the viewpoint that one of the Cybermen investigating that hallway, on their way to the sphere chamber, had turned on some sort of camera attached to it. Slowly, the Cybermen walked, continuing their way down the hall uneventfully. But I knew what was coming and it only took a few moments for a single Dalek to make its way into their vision and onto the screen. Next to me, the Doctor's eyes widened slightly, wariness and disbelief clear on his thin face.

"Identify yourselves," the rolling tin can with a plunger commanded. This was my favorite scene from the episode, the robotic battle of witty insults, and while I loved it, it was surreal to see in person. How was this even real?

As the Cybermen and the Daleks argued, I found it hard not mouthing the words along with them. That would have looked suspicious, definitely, so it was out of the question. Instead, I waited until Jackie began whispering to the Doctor to turn my attention to them. "Rose said about the Daleks. She was terrified of them." Jackie's eyes shifted back and forth between the computer screen and the Doctor, probably hoping for some clue that Rose was okay. "What have they done to her? Doctor, is she dead?"

It took him only a second to come up with a solution. "Phone," he whispered through gritted teeth, holding out his hand to her. I wondered briefly what had happened to my phone. Torchwood had probably gone through that thing with a fine toothed comb. It was unlikely I would ever see it again. Jackie handed over her phone and the Doctor dialed Rose's number, knowing it by heart at this point. It rang for a moment before the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. "She's answered. She's alive." Jackie's face lit up in sheer happiness and I felt my chest tighten. Had my own mother ever worried about me like Jackie did about Rose? If I had gone missing, would she have even cared? And what about Regina? When I went missing, did she try and rally up the cavalry to find me, or did she think it was a big relief that she didn't have to take care of the mentally unstable orphan anymore? _Be home by midnight_. That's what she always said to me. In fact, it was the only thing that had really transferred over into this life. It had never been much of a rule, but a precaution. When it was four A.M. and I still wasn't home, did she panic? Was she still alive? "Why haven't they killed her? They must need her for something. Genesis Ark?"

Using his shoulder to hold the phone, the Doctor pulled out the 3D glasses once again and slipped them on to look at the laptop. When he turned his head, I thought I saw his eyes linger on me, but I could have been wrong. He pulled off the glasses as the Cyber Leader directed a new conversation at the Daleks holed up in the sphere room. I had never been sure if the Doctor had done this on purpose but, considering he rarely did something without one, I had to assume that he did. Still holding the phone to his ear, he walked for a few feet behind the Cyber Leader and back to us, making sure to get himself in the visual. If I had to guess, he was trying to scare the Daleks while assuring Rose that he was coming to get her. Finally, he handed the phone back to Jackie as communications were cut. "Lost her."

"Doctor," I said quietly, having a chance to speak again. "What are the Daleks?" I knew, but I thought it might seem suspicious if I didn't ask.

The look he gave me was grave. "Do the Cybermen scare you?" Instead of answering mine, he asked another question.

I thought for a few seconds. On television, no, they hadn't scared me. Out of all the Doctor Who enemies, they were one that I didn't fear much at all. They just weren't threatening to a girl watching a television show. But now… They were real. They didn't look all that much scarier than on TV, but their presence was much more threatening. I had seen them kill those couple people just for being near the levers. If I made a wrong move, I was sure that they wouldn't think for more than a millisecond about shooting me. They were real. "Yes."

"The Daleks will terrify you. They were built without emotions. Where the Cybermen want to keep you alive so they can upgrade you into one of them, the Daleks' only goal is to destroy and kill. There is no reasoning with them. If you think the Cybermen are bad, and they are, the Daleks are a million times worse."

I felt a shudder pass through me, knowing that the Doctor was right. From what I had seen on Doctor Who, the Cybermen were easy to distract and deal with. Well, maybe easy wasn't the right word. But the Cybermen wouldn't kill you unless they were forced to because they would rather upgrade you. I think being upgraded was worse, but at the very least it gave you an opportunity to escape. The Daleks would shoot on sight. What used to be just a tin can with a plunger was now the most powerful enemy against the Doctor, and could kill me if it so much as glimpsed me.

"Quarantine the sphere chamber," the Cyber Leader commanded of his Cybermen minions. "Start emergency upgrading." Turning towards us, still standing together in Yvonne's office, the Cyber Leader spoke again. "Begin with these personnel."

"Shit." Instinctively, I grabbed the Doctor's hand as the Cybermen marched into the office. Metal hands clamped around my arms and although the Doctor tried to hold onto me, my hand slipped from his and I was being dragged away. "No, no, no, no, Doctor! Get off me! No, this isn't happening. This wasn't supposed to happen! Get _off_!" I kicked and screamed and thrashed against my Cybermen captors, but they were too strong for my frail frame and all I succeeded in doing was hurting myself.

"I demand you leave those women alone!" the Doctor yelled after us. He was important to them, but they didn't listen. "I'll think of something! I'll find you!"

"_Doctor_!" I screamed one last time before he disappeared from my sight.

I was dragged along by them behind Jackie, who was doing her best to fight them and screaming all sorts of threats at them, but I couldn't find the strength to do anything. My heart was threatening to explode out of my chest and I felt the need to vomit, but I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Could they even recognize satisfaction? I wasn't sure. How was this happening to me? Two months ago I was watching Doctor Who on my couch with Athena and Lexi. I just wanted to go back. This was too real. I was in no condition to be surviving one of these fucked up adventures. I couldn't fight; I wasn't strong enough. I was relying on the Doctor to save me. But now I had to save myself, and I didn't know how. This was real, and it was dangerous. Why the hell was I even here? Please wake up. I had begged my mind to wake me up from whatever hellish two month long dream I was having more times than I could count during my stay at Torchwood, and it had never worked. I was in a coma; that had to be it. Wake up, wake up, wake up! This wasn't real. I was going to die, and this couldn't be real. I felt like I couldn't breathe.

All I could think about was the fact that twice now I had left behind the people who cared about me, against my will. I had died, and abandoned my father, and then I had been kidnapped, and forced to leave Regina. Was my father okay without me? Was Lexi looking after him now that I was gone? Would he ever meet a woman and get a life, like I had always wanted him to. Had Athena been found? Oh, god, if I hadn't brought Athena… I would still be there. I wouldn't be facing death at the hands of the Cybermen. And Regina… Was she alright without me? Had she looked for me? Did she know that something had happened to me, or did she think that I had just runaway? It wouldn't have been the first time I'd run away, but it would be the first time I'd run away from Regina. And I hadn't even done it. I wouldn't die here. I had to tell her that I hadn't run away. I didn't want her to blame herself. If I couldn't go back and tell my father that I loved him and that it wasn't his fault, I was sure as hell going to tell Regina. One out of two was better than none. I would survive.

Suddenly I was being shoved into a line behind Jackie and Yvonne. I was at least relieved in the tiniest bit that Yvonne was still first in line, and they hadn't decided to put me in front. I wanted to cry and scream, and call for my father to save me. But in the back of my mind I knew that wouldn't work. I was going to have to save myself, and I had no idea how.

In front of us, in the upgrading area surrounded by plastic work sheets, screams could be heard as sparks flew out the upgrade chamber. I cringed and felt the urge to throw up again. _No_. I was not weak. I would get through this. Come on, Evie.

"What happens in there?" Jackie asked Yvonne, her voice quiet and wary. In her mind, I'm sure Jackie knew or had an idea. "What's upgradin' mean? What do they do?"

Yvonne gagged and I knew she was feeling sick just like I was. She knew she was next. "I think… I think they remove…" Her voice cracked.

"Isn't it obvious?" I asked, my voice thick with angry sarcasm. "They're going to pluck out our brains and turn us into robots, into them." If she hadn't kidnapped me, I might have been able to find a different way of meeting the Doctor. I could have avoided this.

"Next." The Cyberman in front of Yvonne turned and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away from us and down the hallway.

"This is your fault," Jackie yelled at her as she was led away. "You and your Torchwood. You've killed us all!"

I didn't say anything, although I agreed with Jackie wholeheartedly. It was Yvonne's fault this was all happening. Who the hell builds a skyscraper just to reach something? It was her fault, but that didn't mean I believed that anyone should die like this. I hated Yvonne, but I didn't think she deserved to get turned into a Cyberman. If you had asked me earlier, I would have disagreed with what I just said. But the Doctor was right; death didn't make it better or change it.

"We have to get out of this, Jackie," my voice cracked as I tried to talk to her for one last minute before she was next. "I can't… I can't die like this. And you have a daughter. There has to be something we can do." I had to close my eyes as Yvonne walked into the upgrade chamber. I tried to block out the sound of her screaming, but it filled my head. For the next few seconds, it was all I could hear, even after it faded into the sound of saws and other machines. Was that going to happen to me?

No sooner had the screaming stopped that the Cyberman next to Jackie grabbed her arm and began hauling her off. "No!" she screamed, trying to pull away. I saw them lead her up to the same spot Yvonne had just been in a second ago, and stop.

I couldn't hear from back where I was standing, but relief flooded my system as I remembered. The Cyber Leader had just been killed, and they had to decide who would become the next one. The robot let go of Jackie and she began to flee into the sheets behind them, but she stopped and motioned for me to follow. I almost protested, not seeing a way to do that, until I looked beside me and noticed the two Cybermen standing next to me were discussing it as well. "Cyber Leader has been destroyed." They weren't watching me, and the Cybermen next to Jackie were still transferring data. This was my chance. If I waited, they were going to upgrade me. If I failed, they would upgrade me anyway. The only option was to try and escape, because my options if I didn't both sucked. I saw Jackie's blonde hair disappear behind the sheet and, taking a deep breath, I ran after her. I focused only on the sheet, refusing to acknowledge anything in my peripheral vision. If I looked at the Cybermen, I was afraid I would stop. I heard one alert that I was escaping. I ran harder, shoving the plastic sheets out of my way until I found a door. I slammed into it, feeling my entire body ache from the impact, and almost fell on my face as it swung open.

Jackie was standing on the other side, waiting for me, and quickly closed the door as I regained my footing. Before I could say anything, she pulled me into a hug. "Good girl, you made it." Releasing me, she looked me over quickly. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, trying to regain any breath I could while I had the chance. "No, not by a long shot," I said, being honest for once about how I felt. "It is going to take me a hell of a long time to get over this. But we don't have time for that. One of them saw me escaping. We have to haul ass, Jackie."

"Oi, watch your language," she chided, giving me a small smile. "Come on, down the stairs."

And now we were onto something that looked a lot more fun on the show than it was in reality. Running down a million flights of stairs was not easy, especially in bare feet when you're exhausted. We didn't talk, just ran. We had made it down about three flights when the door at the top opened and the metallic thundering footsteps of the Cybermen began pounding down the stairs after us. "Faster," I mouthed, hoping if we stayed silent they wouldn't notice us. I doubt it would work, but a girl can hope.

With each flight of stairs, my heart beat harder in my chest and the walls around me began to spin just a little faster. If I kept this up much longer, I was fairly certain that I was going to collapse from exhaustion. I just had to follow Jackie down and down further, until we could run into the Doctor again. Then I could breathe again.

I made the mistake of looking up, my paranoid self trying to make sure Jackie was still with me. As soon as my eyes left the stairs underneath me, I stepped wrong. My heel landed too far forward and my bare foot slid forward. I tried to catch myself, but I missed the railing and down I went. I felt the edge of the stair scrape along my ankle and my foot twisted in a way that created a popping feeling. Pain shot up my leg at the same time as I managed to not only land on my bad arm, but land it so that the wound gut crushed against the step. Everything spun violently in my vision. The new warmth spreading across my arm told me that whatever scab had been forming over the missing piece of skin had just ripped open and was now gushing blood. Just what I needed.

"Evie!" Jackie's voice echoed slightly in my ears as she rushed back up to help me. Then she screamed.

I had a pretty good idea of what she was bellowing about, but I looked up anyway. Standing above me at the stop of this staircase was a Cyberman, having just come out of the door on this level. "You will be upgraded."

"Mother fucker."

I was going to die, after all that work I had just put into _not_ dying.

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><p>Yes, another cliffhanger. I know, I might as well be Satan. But I enjoy the frustration it causes everyone :) Anyways, so some good old DoctorEvie moments. Next chapter will be the last one for this episode so then we can move on to some more interesting stuff. Yay! But it is an awfully large chunk of the episode (because I want to get this episode over with) so it might be a little bit before I can get it up. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, but I make no promises on that. I have a hectic schedule the next few days so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to work on this. But I will try and I'm not working on any other stories at the moment so you can take comfort in the fact that I literally have nothing else to write but this. I can't wait for more Doctor/Evie scenes. There's a good one at the end of the next chapter ;) Look forward to it, my lovelies, and don't forget to review!


	5. 5: Not What I Was Expecting

Aaaand we're back! Hola mis amigos! I totally butchered that but whatever. Anyway, my point is I am back! With a new chapter! Obviously! I'm just so freaking excited about this story. And this is the last chapter for the Doomsday episode and I'm thinking of doing a TARDIS tour after the Donna Christmas Special so all this wonderful stuff is coming up for the story and I'M SO EXCITED. You should be excited too. Except I think most of you are so good job guys, mission accomplished. So I published chapter 4 on Wednesday and then I had a shit ton of stuff going on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and I won't go into details because, you know, not necessary, but that's why I didn't get this up before school started so :( But I am going to try my hardest to work on this frequently while I'm in school so hopefully updates won't be too slow. I promise not to disappear on you guys so don't send me death threats or anything. But please don't be too sad and upset if my updates start taking longer. Anyway, as usual, thank you to the perfect people who clicked on the favorite and follow buttons, and to my darling Whovians who reviewed: yellowroseofthenw, MinecraftLover00, CalicoKitty402, Araneae Siqua, Elysium Phoenix, OwlLover123, Stereotypical Nobody, abigailcqd, Izzy DeAngelo, and the Guest reviewer. You guys are amazing and really make writing this worthwhile :) As always, you should thank Heycassbut for being amazing and for letting me send her twelve messages in a row of chapter planning and ideas and not killing me for it. Don't forget to review! Which I'm sure you won't because you have all been so awesome with it. I think you guys will really like this chapter and there's an awesome Doctor/Evie scene at the end that I've been dying to write so let's go!

**Yellowroseofthenw:** I am cruel :) Like a Dalek apparently. Careful sitting on the edge of your seat, though, you might fall off. Thanks for reviewing for the first time!

**CalicoKitty402:** Don't cry! I'm glad you're enjoying!

**Araneae Siqua:** Sadly (not sadly?) I think most of my chapters will end in cliffhangers. This chapter will, but maybe not the next chapter. I might be nice and give you guys a break from the cliffhangers for a chapter. But how else will I keep you all wondering? Bwahaha. As for your question on butchering canon, yes she will totally get to that. Sooner than later! There might be some in this chapter so keep your eyes out!

**Izzy DeAngelo:** Don't worry! I'll keep it coming! Thanks for reviewing. Hope to keep hearing from you!

**Elysium Phoenix:** I'm glad you like Evie. I think she's really turning into a good character I can be proud of and I can't wait to write more Doctor/Evie scenes. The idea of them together makes me so giddy and I almost hate the Doomsday episode because there's just not enough of them together! But soon, there will be lots more. Next chapter will be chock full of Doctor/Evie scenes!

**OwlLover123:** What are you talking about? Suspense is fun!

**Stereotypical Nobody:** I'm going to assume by your profile picture thingamajig and your name that Nobody is a reference to Kingdom Hearts? Which is awesome. If it's not, then whoops, I'm a failure :P But if it is, then you rock because I love KH. I don't know if I'm a great writer but I'm happy you think so! I will try continue being awesome, as long as you and all the other wonderful people who love my story keep being awesome as well. Thanks for reviewing :)

**Abigailcqd:** I've never gotten a HAMazing before! I know writing episodes can be extremely boring so I try to make them more interesting. The other ones should be better than this episode though. I found Doomsday kind of hard to insert her into so hopefully the upcoming episodes will be more interesting. I don't know if they're brilliant, but thank you!

Chapter 5: Not What I Expected

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><p>"<em>We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."<em>

_Oscar Wilde_

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><p>"You will be upgraded."<p>

For fucks sake, I was beginning to think the universe was out to murder me. First the car, then Yvonne and freaking Torchwood, and now the Cybermen. Was this what life with the Doctor was, just one near death experience after the other? Sure, they had been in dangerous situations on the show, but you always knew they survived. There were more episodes and media reports that told you when actors would be leaving and getting replaced so you knew if someone was going to die or leave. But there were no reports telling me that I was going to live. I was making this up as I went, and it was terrifying. And now I was face to face with a Cyberman, and there was no Cyber Leader kicking the bucket to distract it. This was bad.

Slowly, I used the railing next to me as leverage to pull myself to my feet. My ankle, probably twisted from falling, screamed in protest. The blood that was seeping through my bandage from my wound was dripping down my arm onto the stairs. Everything hurt. It would be so much easier just to give up. At least a Cyberman didn't feel pain.

Oh God, Evie, snap out of it. You don't want to die. You want to live, and travel with the Doctor like you dreamed about your entire life. But did I? Did I really, if this was what traveling with him was going to be like? How many times would I have to stare death in the face? Did that matter? I could be happy, traveling with him. At the very least, I deserved to try for happiness for once in my life. And I couldn't die here. I had to tell Regina that I was still alive, that I hadn't run away. I couldn't tell my father, so I would tell her.

"No." My voice shook, sounding as weak as I felt. It was meek and quiet, and I would have been surprised if the Cyberman had even heard me. I was terrified, scared out of my mind, but there had to be some courage inside of me. The Doctor was always able to distract these guys. What would he do? I took a deep breath and quickly searched inside of me for some trace of strength, of bravery, something to help me out of this. I found it, hiding deep within my gut. Focusing on it, I mustered as much strength as I could and I opened my mouth. "_No_, you will not upgrade me. Not today. Not any day." The strength of my voice reverberated through me, making me feel firmer. My legs stopped shaking. Without looking away from the Cyberman's face, I called to Jackie, who had understandably retreated down a few steps. "Jackie, run. Get out of here."

"Not without you." Jackie was stubborn. How could I have expected that to work? She was a mother, through and through. She would never have left a child alone, even if it wasn't her child.

I didn't have time to argue with her, and I was certain that it wouldn't have worked anyway. "You will come. You will be upgraded," the Cyberman repeated itself.

It began reaching its arm towards me but I put my finger up, on my good arm. "Put that arm back down, you giant tin can. You will wait and you will hear what I have to say." I don't know if it was the sudden authority filling my voice or something else, but it slowly lowered its arm again. I was pulling together everything I had ever seen the Doctor do on the show and trying to mimic it, to be commanding without appearing like a threat. I couldn't believe it was working. "You can't upgrade me. Do you know why? I'm not compatible. I don't exist." The idea was spinning around in my head, getting bigger and bigger, and I was almost sure I could outwit the robot, if nothing went wrong. Thank you, Torchwood, for finally being useful.

"Then you will be deleted."

"Ah, but…" Oh, come on words, form already! I thought back to every computer I had ever owned and every game I had ever tried to install. "But you can't delete something that doesn't exist either, you idiot. I'm like a computer icon after you've erased all the files that go with it. Can't delete something without files because then the computer has no idea it exists. That's me. I'm here, but the files are gone. I don't exist, and you can't delete something that doesn't exist. Ha!"

I thought I had won, but it just began reaching its arm towards me again. "We can try. You will be deleted."

"No!" I yelled again, pulling every ounce of being into that one word. I just needed to distract it long enough to turn and run. That's it, just turn and run without it shooting me. "I know what happens to you. Don't you want to know? I know how badly you fail, how your Cyber Leader got his head blown clean off. And you're all going to follow him, straight into hell. Because the Doctor is going to win. He's going to open the breech and suck you all into the Void, falling and falling forever. You're going to die."

"You are wrong. The Cybermen will be victorious."

"Nope, wrong!" Behind me, I carefully stretched one foot down to the next step. It didn't notice. "You should go check on your Cybermen buddies because, right now, right this instant, they're getting their asses handed to them by the Daleks. The Daleks will beat you. But even the Daleks, the most terrible alien horde to ever exist, will follow you into the Void, into hell. You'll all be lost forever." I couldn't help but grin. My threats had made it drop its arm, contemplating what I was saying. Now I just had to finish it off. "Do you want to know how I know this? Do you know who I am?"

"No."

Okay, that was good. I didn't know that I was no one. Time to make something up and hope it believed me. "I am Evangeline Blackstone. I am the existing non-existence, and defender of the weak. I am, right here, right now, your worst nightmare."

"You are nothing compared to the Cybermen."

"You might be right. I'm ordinary. I'm just a plain old girl with a screwed up life, but it's the plain and ordinary people who make all the difference. You would know that if you knew who I was. Look me up, Cyberman, and then run. Run for your life, tin can, because I'm about to make it a living hell."

"Searching for information regarding Evangeline Blackstone."

The moment the words were out of its mouth and its robotic hand was raised to its chest to search and download any information on me, which I knew there would be none, I grinned. Score one for me. Cybermen couldn't multitask. I had figured that out when we had escaped just a few minutes before. They were dealing with the downloading of a new Cyber Leader that they couldn't stop us from leaving. They couldn't do two things at once. I turned and stumbled down the next few steps before regaining my footing. "It's only gonna take it a minute to realize I just lied my ass off so we have to run now, Jackie." I grabbed her hand and pulled her after me. I realized that I had made a mistake in saying all that with Jackie right there. If it was the Doctor or Rose or anyone else, they would have known in an instant that I wasn't lying. But I couldn't stop myself; I didn't know how else to distract the Cyberman. I just had to hope that Jackie wouldn't realize I had been telling the future when I yelled at the stupid robot.

The stairs were even harder the second time going down. I had to force myself to ignore the shooting pain in my ankle. The stairwell walls swam around me and it didn't help that the blood loss from my arm was making me a little lightheaded. I was already thin as a stick from being holed up here and the exhaustion from everything I'd been through was enough to make me want to collapse. I don't know how I managed to muster up the strength to keep running down the steps but I did, Jackie at my side. I just kept telling myself that this would be over soon and then I could sleep. I wasn't quite sure where I would sleep but I would sleep nonetheless.

Above us we could hear the Cybermen footsteps following us down. They were slow, though, metal legs couldn't move them very fast. We had gone down quite a bit when Jackie's cell phone started ringing. She stopped to pull it out of her pocket but I pulled her along with me. "We can't stop, Jackie. Trust me, if I stop, I ain't moving again."

Nodding in agreement, she followed after me as she answered her phone. "Oh my God, help me!" Me? Thanks, Jackie, it's always nice not to be mentioned. I rolled my eyes and kept moving. I couldn't hear what the Doctor was saying but Jackie kept rambling about how scared she was and how the Cybermen were after us so he couldn't get a word in. "I don't know. Staircase."

In the time that she had answered the phone, I had fled down the next two sets of stairs. "N-3, Jackie!" I yelled, knowing it would take her a minute to figure it out.

"Evie says we're at N-3!" she repeated into the phone. He must have asked how I was doing, which made me smile in spite of the situation. "She's here. We both managed to run away. But she's hurt, Doctor. She's bleeding. Oh, don't leave me!" The Doctor must have hung up because she stuffed her phone back in her pocket and grabbed my hand so we could keep running.

I don't know how long we continued going down the stairs for, but after so many steps I couldn't go any further. "Jackie, I can't do anymore. I've gotten enough exercise for one day," I breathed as I stopped on the next landing, leaning against the railing for support.

Above us the Cybermen were still thundering down the steps. Jackie looked down over the side of the stairwell, checking to see how much further we had to go, and then she turned to me, her face full of fright. The Cybermen were coming up from the bottom now. I couldn't be sure if we were on the right floor or not but there was nowhere for us to go. "The door," I said, shoving her towards it. Pushing myself off the railing for momentum, I followed her through the door.

We began wandering down the hallway we found after closing the door behind us. Maybe the Cybermen wouldn't notice that we had ditched them. I hobbled after Jackie, one hand on the wall to keep myself up. We didn't get very far before Jackie slid to a halt as two Cybermen stepped out in front of her. "You will be upgraded."

"Not again…" I groaned as she begged for them not to take her.

Suddenly the Cybermen were hit by something from behind and they fell forward, dead. I breathed a sigh of relief. Just because Jackie had only run into one batch of Cybermen in the hallway on the show didn't mean it would be the same in real life. I was learning to not expect everything to be the same as it was on television.

As the Cybermen clattered to the floor, the smoke from the explosion cleared and revealed the Pete from the parallel world holding a gun. The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey stood around him. As Jackie stared in Pete in disbelief and they began to talk, standing twenty feet away from each other and practically yelling across the hallway, I pressed my back to the wall and allowed myself to slide down onto the floor. It would have been easy to just fall asleep right there. My eyelids felt heavy and I tried to shake my head to wake myself up at least a little, but that only succeeded in making the room spiral about. Note to self, don't do that again. Instead, I focused on Jackie's and Pete's reunion. They had just finished talking and were running at each other into a hug. It was nice, although technically it wasn't really a reunion and they weren't the same Pete and Jackie that they had both fallen in love with. Just because you're that person in a parallel world doesn't meant that you're the same in a different parallel world. But still, even if I was cynical about relationships, it was nice. There was no debate about them not being the same person, no arguing, nothing but love.

If my parents had never adopted me, they could have stayed together like that. They used to love each other, until they didn't anymore. They could have stayed in their big place in New York City and Dad could have kept his job with his friends, and Mom wouldn't have had to leave. Well, I guess technically she didn't have to leave at all, even with the divorce. It was her choice to cut us, cut me, out of her life and I couldn't be blamed for that. But without me they would never have gotten a divorce. Looking at Pete and Jackie, I couldn't help but wonder: why couldn't my mother be more like Pete? By agreeing to be with Jackie, he was signing up for Rose as well, something he hadn't had in his old life, before the Cybermen destroyed it. And I knew that he took care of Rose, even though she wasn't really his daughter. But he treated her like she was, and that was more than my mother had given me. I had never been more than the girl who had seemed like a good idea until she began costing too much money.

I didn't notice the Doctor heading towards me until his white Converse were standing in front of my bare feet. I looked up at him, feeling something wet slide down my cheek. I quickly tried to brush it away. That was all I needed, to look weak. Get it together, Evie. He squatted down so he could look at me. Like before, his eyes quickly scanned over my new injuries before finally resting on my probably dirt-covered face. "You're crying. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Doc." He raised a skeptical eyebrow. I sighed. "Once upon a time, my parents got divorced. It was brutal. My friend, Lexi, said it was the most vicious thing she'd ever seen, and she's seen me eat on Chinese Takeout Tuesday. It's just… This is nice. I don't have a lot of experience with functional families so it's… kind of fantastic."

He looked over at them, at the smile on Rose's face, before grinning at me. "I did that. Her husband died. His wife died. Good match." He was so proud of himself.

I couldn't help but chuckle a little. "What are you saying, Doctor? Should every widow in the world just find a man whose wife is dead?"

"No, no, no, that's not what I said at all! Jackie and Pete… Well, they were both married to a different, but not different, Jackie and Pete and then that Jackie and Pete died and now they found a new Jackie and Pete." If that wasn't the worst explanation for what just happened, I didn't know what was. I nodded, pretending to understand exactly what he'd just said. His smile shifted all of a sudden and I recognized that look; another thought had just taken over his mind. "Wait a minute. Your parents got divorced? Earlier you said that you were raised in foster care and that you lived with a girl who took you in. How could you have divorced parents?"

Of course he would have caught that. Stupid. It wasn't too bad of a question at least. There were plenty of answers I could give that would explain how an orphan had parents. "It's a long story, Doctor," I decided to tell him. It was true; my story was long and annoying. There was no time to explain that right now.

He looked like he was going to say something for a moment, and decided against it. At least we were over that bump for now. He started to stand, offering me a hand and an arm to hold onto. "Up we go," he said as I wrapped my good arm around his and placed the elbow of my bad arm in his hand. Trying not to put too much pressure on my ankle, I let the Doctor pull me to my feet. I must have stood just a little too hard on the one foot, though, because it started to give out beneath me. He put a hand on my back to steady me before I fell on my face. "What happened after the Cybermen took you?"

As I regained my balance, I recounted the experience, leaving out the internal freaking out I did. "Uh, well, Yvonne kicked the bucket. Karma, by the way, is a bitch."

"What did I say earlier about death not being the answer?" the Doctor sighed as he shook his head. I must have looked too happy at the fact that she couldn't bother me anymore. I shrugged and then winced as pain ached through my body from the simple motion. "Alright, go on."

"Hey, it's not my fault she's dead. It isn't like I killed her. Do I feel bad about how she died? Sure. Do I feel bad that she's dead? No. She deserved it. I call it payment for the thousands of people who are probably dead now because of her Ghost Shift shit." It was true. I wouldn't have wished death by Cybermen on anyone, even Bitch-Vonne, but I was happy she was dead. She couldn't bother me anymore. I glanced over down the hall to where everyone else was standing. Rose was caught between smiling, happy that her parents were together, and giving me a strange look, probably not too happy that her Doctor had his arms around a strange girl with fading blue hair. "Anyway, moving on, the Cybermen were too caught up after killing Bitch Face with their Cyberman Leader thing dying that Jackie and I were able to haul ass out of there. And then there were a shit ton of stairs and then I fell on said stairs and I think I twisted my ankle when I fell. I also ripped my arm open again because the universe hates me and I landed on my arm. And then there were more stairs and now we're here. I can't even begin to tell you how done I am with stairs."

The Doctor looked down at my ankle, which was beginning to swell some, and then turned my arm over in his hand. The bandage was completely soaked through with blood and I could tell by looking at my skin that I was beginning to pale from blood loss. He grimaced and tried to give me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. Once we're through this, I'll fix you up."

"I'll hold you to that, Doctor."

Keeping one hand on my arm to keep me steady, the Doctor helped me walk over to the group. "Everyone, this is Evangeline Blackstone."

"Call me Evie," I interrupted quickly before he could go on any further and then everyone was calling me Evangeline.

"Humans," he said, rolling his eyes. "This is Evie. Evie, this is everyone. Introductions later when we have time."

"What happened to you?" Rose asked, the jealous look gone from her face now that she saw how crappy I looked.

I went to shrug again and, remembering how much it hurt, decided against it. "Short story? Torchwood. They kidnapped me and then tortured me to prove that I don't exist, which is weird because clearly, _clearly_, I do exist and I'm standing here. So really I got butchered for no reason and it's all just really weird and confusing and then a bunch of Cybermen tried to kill me and then I fell on the stairs and… yeah. Nothing that twenty years of intensive therapy won't fix."

"I'm sorry." I was expecting Rose to say that, but instead it was Mickey. He looked incredibly pained and guilty about the whole situation. "I saw you, but I couldn't do anything to help you. If I had, you might not be in this mess. I'm sorry."

If I could have waved it off, I would have but I didn't think I could hold my arm up long enough to do it. "Don't worry about it. No biggie. Besides, apparently you were doing the undercover thing so it's not like you could have blown it. That would have been bad. So no worries. If it's anyone's fault, it's Yvonne's and she's dead now. Has anyone seen a bald scientist with a really bad toupee, or one with a slightly bruised face? I wonder if karma got them, too."

"Evie…" the Doctor said in exasperation, a clear warning that I should stop wishing death on people.

"They cut a piece of my arm out of me. I get to wish whatever I want on them. That's the rule," I argued back. "I hold grudges." I was angry and bitter, and I had a right to be.

With a shake of his head, the Doctor put it away for later. "We should get moving. Evie, can you walk on your own?"

I tried to look confident, although I had no idea if I could or not anymore. "Yeah, sure, totally. I got this. Twisted ankle never stopped me before." Except when I let go of the Doctor and tried to take a step, my ankle felt like rubber beneath me and I found myself grabbing his arm once more to keep myself standing. "Okay, I lied. I don't got this."

Mickey stepped forward, taking the arm that wasn't oozing red slime and pulling it over his shoulder and behind his neck. He put his other arm around my waist. "I do. I'll give you a hand walking. Least I could do, considerin' I wasn't any help before."

"Chivalry at its finest." I knew there was a reason I had always liked him. "Thank you, Mickey."

As soon as the word was out of my mouth and I saw the look on his face, I knew I had made a mistake. Shit, shit, shit. We hadn't even taken a step yet and he was looking at me like I was some sort of freak. "How'd you know my name?"

The Doctor was giving me one of those looks, when he wasn't quite sure of what to make of something, and I was starting to think that I would be getting that look a lot in the future. What could I say? I couldn't tell them that the reason I knew his name was because he was a severely underused television character in a different world. But I couldn't say nothing and have them keep looking at me like that. I really had to start thinking before I spoke. "The reason I know your name?" I had an idea but I wasn't sure it would work. But it might be enough to get them off my case at least for the rest of the episode… I mean, adventure. "I have a knack for names. I'm like a Guess Your Weight booth at a carnival, except with names. I guess names. And you look much more like a Mickey than a Samuel." That was a half-assed excuse and I think they knew it. "And I could go into more details but that would be wasting time. Wouldn't it, Doctor?" I said pointedly, knowing that if the Doctor let it go, the rest of them would as well.

The Doctor nodded, seeming to understand what I was saying, and turned to start leading the way. "We have to figure out what the Daleks are up to. Let's go!"

Mickey, apparently deciding that it wasn't worth his concern if the Doctor was walking away from it, smiled at me. "You ready, Evie?"

"No," I snorted, honest for once. "But it's not like there's a choice. Into hell we go."

~X~

Without Mickey's assistance, I don't think I would have made it very far. By the time we got to the large store room where the Daleks and the Cybermen were duking it out, I was beginning to feel a little better. At the very least, I was determined not to rely on him anymore. Not because he wasn't sweet for offering to help or because I couldn't use the help, but because I didn't want to seem weak for needing the assistance. Was it stupid? Probably. But I was stubbornly independent and I hated having to rely on him to help me walk. I would just grin and bear it, and no one would ever know the difference. Hopefully.

I was leaning against the wall behind everyone as they watched the Doctor tuck and roll his way through the battleground, the magna clamps his goal. Rose had one of the large double doors pushed open so she could watch, in case he got fried by accident, and gasp with fright every time a laser came close to him. I was concerned, of course, because there was always the possibility that the Doctor could die right there in that room and this wouldn't turn out at all like the episode, but I was too exhausted to join in. Leaning against the wall seemed like a much better option. The day was almost over. I just had to focus on that. But was that even a good thing?

He wasn't the most inconspicuous man ever as he snagged the clamps and practically dove his way back to us. But I had to say I was relieved that he was alive. I don't know what I would have done if he actually had died there. Dropping the heavy black things on the floor almost immediately, he shoved the 3D glasses onto his face yet again and peeked back into the room. How many times did he have to look at things? He was nothing if not persistent.

While he and Rose looked into the room, at the Daleks who were beginning to open the ceiling, Jackie turned to me, her face full of sympathy. "You poor thing. You're so pale! Are you going to be alright?"

I almost wanted to hug the woman, which was something I never ever did except for with Regina. "Every mother should be more like you, Jackie. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine once I have a couple dozen blood transfusions."

It was my nature to joke and I was hoping that she would worry less if I was still capable of humor, but all it did was make her frown. "Joke all you want. I can see you're 'bout to drop." She turned to the Doctor, who was watching as the Daleks rose up into the sky with the Genesis Ark. "Doctor, she needs medical attention-"

"Jackie, Jackie, Jackie," I hissed, causing her to stop before the Doctor could get distracted by me again. "The Doctor has more important things, like the end of the world, to worry about than me." Being who she was, Jackie looked like she was going to argue. "No, you know that it's true. My inability to function will not be the reason the world gets destroyed by robots from hell, or space."

Rose must have heard the conversation because she had turned away from the Doctor and the Daleks to give me something that looked like it was caught between wanting to smile and purse her lips. I wasn't sure if the strange look was good, or not.

Completely oblivious, the Doctor closed the double doors behind him and stuffed the glasses back into his pocket. "We've got to see what it's doing!" he yelled, frantic, as he picked up the magna clamps off the floor and began to run down the hall. "We've got to go back up! Come on, all of you, to the top floor!"

Mickey offered me his help again but I shook my head as Jackie yelled back, "That's 45 floors up! Believe me, I've done 'em all!"

I made no rush to run after them, knowing that the elevator would be functional in just a moment. "Doctor, I hope you realize that the only way I'm going up 45 flights of stairs is if you drag my dead body up them because it's going to kill me."

I had just passed the elevator, trying not to look like I was waiting for it, when Jake popped his spiky head out of it with a grin. "We could always take the lift."

I spun around, immediately regretting it as I felt my ankle groan, but I was too happy to scream like I wanted to. "You, blondie, are my hero."

I was the first one in, not counting Jake, and I positioned myself in the corner of the elevator. Should I start saying lift now that I was British? Whatever. I would have preferred the "lift" over the stairs in this situation any day, but as a rule I hated elevators. They gave me anxiety, and this case was no different, especially since the building was a warzone and a Cyberman could accidentally blast a hole in the wall and cause our lift to drop at any moment. It was a cramped space, and I had seen way too many shows and movies where the elevator dropped you to your death. Thankfully, no one asked as I stood in the corner with my eyes squeezed shut.

Once the doors opened with a ping, I let everyone else rush out before following, glad to be out. I joined them at the window in Yvonne's office, watching as the Genesis Ark rotated in the air, shooting out Dalek after Dalek. "Time Lord Science…" the Doctor said gravely, understanding hitting him a brick of knowledge. "It's bigger on the inside."

"Did Time Lords put those Daleks in there?" Mickey asked. He sounded partially like he was blaming the Doctor, the Time Lords, and I suppose he was correct because without the Genesis Ark this wouldn't be happening. But his face mimicked the horror on everyone else's. "What for?"

"It's a prison ship."

Rose looked at him, hopeful but knowing the answer wouldn't be good. "How many Daleks?"

"Millions." The Doctor was horrified, it was easy to see. The Genesis Ark was from his people, and he probably felt like it was all his fault this was happening. Four Daleks were one thing; millions were another.

As they stared, I turned my head. The Ghost Shift room was empty, minus the two dead bodies that were still lying on the floor by the levers. They didn't show you that on television. People had died, and there was no one there to clean up the bodies. I wondered if these two men would wind up on the list of missing people once the battle was over, or if their families would find them to give them a proper burial. Would their families ever get closure? What about Yvonne, and Ed, and Toupee? Did they have families somewhere? Was their wife, their husband, their four dogs, just sitting at home, wondering what in the hell had happened to the person they cared about? The episode had never made mention of what the families went through after this. No dead bodies, no closure. How much else had the rest of the show left out that was too gruesome for television? How many corpses would I have to see if I continued on with this?

Would I be one of them? My heart was racing, and I knew it didn't have anything to do with the damage my body had endured or the exertion I was putting it through. What if something happened to me? What if, instead of Rose, I slipped from the clamp and got sucked into the Void? What if I fell, and no one came to catch me? Or worse, and just my presence here caused something even worse to happen? A million things could go wrong, just because I was here. This wasn't anything like I had pictured in my head a thousand times, and I was scared. When you picture a life of traveling with the Doctor, you picture all the fun times and the excitement of an adventure. You never think about all the casualties or the danger. I never did. And now I was face to face with the possibility that I could die, and I imagined it wouldn't be the first time.

"I'm sorry, but you've had it." Pete's voice stirred me from my thoughts as he turned and walked out of the office into the large room. "This world's going to crash and burn. There's nothing we can do."

I slowly followed them out of the office and leaned against the metal door frame as Pete handed Jackie the yellow button. Crash and burn? The world was already doing that. How many people were dead already? How many dead bodies littered the London streets? How many families were left broken, and who was going to clean up the mess? My mind traveled back to Regina. Regina, who was either a corpse on the ground or hiding at home in the closet. Or maybe she was neither. She could have been out in the streets looking for me. That would have been just like her, to worry about finding me while the world went to hell instead of protecting herself. And if she was dead, then it would be my fault because I wasn't there to tell her to hide her ass. What would I do then? I would travel with the Doctor, but what if the Doctor didn't want me? What if the grief of losing Rose was too much for him to take me with him, or what if I just wasn't good enough to travel time and space? If the Doctor didn't want me, and Regina was dead… I would be an orphan again. I would be forced to go into foster care, which would be a repeat for Evangeline but something new for me. And though I had never personally experienced the trouble that was foster care, I had memories and I had no intentions of going back to it and making new ones. I was only seventeen, and I couldn't do it.

"Evie? Evie? Evangeline!" I found my eyes watering as I turned my head up into the Doctor's worried face. "You're shaking. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I told you she needed a doctor. The real kind!" Jackie voiced from where she stood by Pete. I almost smiled.

"It's not just that, is it, Evie?" The Doctor had always been good at telling when things weren't right. "What else is bothering you?"

I was going to say I was fine, that we didn't have time, but I found my voice cracking and I couldn't stop worrying. "What if Regina's not okay? What if she's dead? What if I have no one to go home to? What if I don't even have a home? And Regina probably thinks I ran away or something stupid like that because that's who I am, or who I used to be, but in reality I got kidnapped by a bunch of fucking psychopaths! And I don't know if I'll even be able to tell her that I didn't run away, that I didn't leave on purpose. I don't know if she'll be there, and I have to tell her so she doesn't think she's a failure because she's all I have and I don't know what to do without her. And I can't… I don't know if she's okay…"

He put a hand on my cheek, wiping away a few tears who had budged their way out of my eye. "I can't tell you if Regina is alive or if she's okay, but I can tell you that I will get you out of this. Everything will be fine."

How could agree that things would work out, when I knew they wouldn't. Nothing ever worked out in my life. Not only that, but his whole world was about to fall apart and I couldn't say anything. I just nodded.

"Doctor, are you ready?" Pete was asking.

Giving my shoulders a quick squeeze that I was sure was supposed to be reassuring, the Doctor whipped his glasses out for the last time on this adventure and pushed them up onto his nose. "Oh, I'm ready!" He ran over to one desks with computers, typing away furiously. "Equipment right here. Thank you, Torchwood! Slam it down and close off both universes.

"But we can't just leave," Rose said, confused. How could they leave this world, when it was burning? They had a responsibility to it. In the background, the computer system announced that it was rebooting. "What about the Daleks? And the Cybermen?"

"They're part of the problem," the Doctor spun around, finished with that computer, and pointed a finger right in Rose's face. Kind of rude, if you ask me. "And _that_ makes them part of the solution. Oh, yes!" He looked around at the lot of us expectantly, and slightly disappointed that no one had noticed or bothered to ask. "Well, isn't anyone going to ask, what is it with the glasses?"

Rose grinned, her smile bright and excited. It was easy to see how much she loved this, and how much she loved the Doctor. There wasn't a worry in her mind that something could go wrong. "What is it with the glasses?"

"I can see, that's what!" I was finding it hard not to smile, even though I knew that this would only last a minute. Their energy was contagious. "'Cause we've got two separate worlds, but in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That's where the Daleks were hiding." In a similar way to how I always talked, the Doctor was gesturing wildly with his hands, cupping them together to mimic the Void. Rose watched his animations with focus, determined to understand all the strange concepts the Doctor always spat out. "And the Cybermen traveled through the Void to get here. And you lot," he gestured towards Mickey, Jake, and Pete, "one world to another, via the Void." He sucked in a breath, suddenly off topic. "Oh, I like that. Via the Void." I could never stand the way he said "via" there. Maybe it was a British thing, like how they pronounce privacy. "Look, I've been through it." He pulled the 3D glasses off his face and pressed them to Rose's. Her hands went up to hold them in place, and he wobbled around in front of her so she could see the Void particles around him.

The computer chimed again. "Reboot in three minutes."

Her hand stretched out, rubbing the air around the Doctor's head. "What is it?"

"Void stuff."

"Like, um… Background radiation!" I always loved how Rose could simplify the most complicated things into plain and simple human terms. Donna might have been my favorite companion, but Rose was so much better in ways that Donna and Martha hadn't been.

"That's it. Look at the others." The Doctor turned her around. I could have been mistaken, but I thought the Doctor's eyes lingered on me for a moment longer than the others when he said that. "The only one who hasn't been through the Void? Your mother. First time she's looked normal in her life."

Jackie looked offended, but Rose just turned to me. "Even Evie has it. How is that?"

The smile on the Doctor's face vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Good question, Rose. I noticed that earlier." He took a few steps towards me. He raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't in the usual lighthearted way he normally would. "I think it's time you told us who you are, Evangeline Blackstone."

"I should have known I couldn't hide that for very long." I hadn't actually meant to say that out loud, but my thoughts apparently felt like vocalizing themselves. I guess it didn't matter. That thought wasn't incriminating. I couldn't tell him that I was from a world where his life was a television show, but I also couldn't hide the fact that I was from a parallel world anymore. That must have been why he made sure to look at me every time he put those glasses on. How had I not realized? Stupid, Evie, you're stupid. I had to tell the truth, but only a half truth. "Well, I'm not really sure. Who I am, I mean. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'm from a parallel world, like Petey and the Ghostbusters here, but I don't know why I'm here or how the hell I got here. All I know is that I got hit by a car, maybe I died, and then I woke up in this body, doing this whole not existing thing which I swear was not a thing when I was Felicity. Or maybe it was and no one fucking bothered to tell me."

"Oi, language!" Jackie interrupted, giving me one of her scolding stares.

I raised my good hand in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'll stop saying fuck." The look on her face was priceless as she just huffed and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, that's all I know. Now, we can discuss this further if you want, Doctor man, after we all survive getting mauled by a bazillion Daleks. It's your choice." It wasn't like I lied. That was really all I knew. I had gotten hit by a car, and then woken up as Evangeline. Sure, I had left out the part about Doctor Who but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. It wasn't lying if I didn't tell him.

He stared at me, trying to analyze me, for a moment. Then, like a switch had been flipped, he turned back around. I had reminded him of the time crunch, and it had done the trick. Rose was still wearing the glasses and she turned to watch as the Doctor ran up to the breech wall. "But the Daleks lived inside the Void. They're bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them." When he made it to the wall, he threw his arms out, gesturing to the large invisible Void. "I just open the Void and reverse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside."

"Pulling 'em all in!" Rose added with vibrant emphasis.

"Pulling 'em all in!"

"Sorry," Mickey cleared his throat, reminding the Doctor that they were there as well. "What's the Void?"

"The dead space," the Doctor answered simply. I remembered the explanation being longer than that, but there was no time for specifics. "Some people call it hell."

"So, you're sending the Daleks and the Cybermen to hell?" Mickey slipped the yellow button over his head, grinning at Jake next to him. "Man, I told you he was good."

Rose, ignoring that part of the conversation, looked down at her hands, at the Void stuff on them, as realization dawned on her. "But it's like you said. We've all got Void stuff. Me too, 'cause we went to that parallel world. We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in."

As soon as Rose finished her sentence, the reality of it slammed into me like that damn car I had gotten hit by. I felt like I couldn't breathe. No. Why hadn't I thought of that? I had thought of _everything_ else. But I hadn't thought of that. Even when Rose said I had Void stuff on me, I hadn't thought of it. I had Void stuff on me, just like the Doctor. Just like Rose. Just like the Daleks and the Cybermen. I would get pulled in. I had worried about slipping and getting sucked in, but I had just brushed it off as me worrying too much. I was paranoid. But no, it was real. And it was a possibility. I had come over from my world where this was a show, a parallel world, and to do that you had to cross the Void. Fuck you, Universe, fuck you. I said it once and I'll say it again: the universe has it out for me.

"Reboot in two minutes." The computer's voice brought me back.

"I'm opening the Void, but only on this side." The Doctor was trying to comfort Rose, tell her to go live out her life with her mother and her father who wasn't really her father. Would he tell that to me, too? "You'll be safe on that side."

"What about…" I started to ask, but I choked on my voice. The Doctor left Rose, starting towards me. Whatever curiosity he'd had for me before was gone now. I don't know if it was just the concept of losing Rose that made him miserable or if he was truly sad that I was leaving, but I was leaning more towards the former. "What about me, Doctor? That means I'll get pulled in, too, yeah? That's not fair. Haven't I gone through enough?"

"Oh, Evangeline Blackstone," the Doctor sighed as he looked me over. "You've gone through enough for six lifetimes. I'm so sorry there isn't more I can do for you. I let you down by not getting you out of here sooner. This might not be happening if I had noticed this earlier, and I'm so sorry. But you'll go with them. Jackie will take care of you, just as she's been all day. One of the few things she's good at, taking care of people. You'll be safe there. And you can find a doctor there to help you. And I can find Regina and tell her what happened to you so she doesn't worry."

I opened my mouth to argue, one of the few things I was good at, but the words wouldn't come. How could this be happening to me? My dreams were disappearing faster than food on the floor when Athena was around. All I had ever wanted in my life was to travel with the Doctor, to live a life worth living and make something of myself. How could I do that now?

"And then you close it, for good?" Pete asked, ignoring the obviously traumatized state that I was in.

"The breech itself is soaked in Void stuff. In the end, it'll close itself." The Doctor walked away from me, back towards the middle of the room. Didn't he care that my life was falling apart? No, I suppose not. He didn't even know me. I was just going to be some girl he knew once; one of the side characters on an episode who he saves but then forgets all about. "And that's it. Kaput." I always loved the way he popped the end of that word, but now I just wanted to punch him for it.

"But you stay on this side?" Like me, Rose was having trouble coming to terms with what he'd just said.

The Doctor ran to get the magna clamps off the deceased Yvonne's desk when Mickey mentioned him getting pulled in. "That's why I got these. I'll just have to hold on tight. Been doing it all my life."

"I'm supposed to go," Rose was still talking, confirming this absurd idea that she was just supposed to leave, that I was supposed to leave. The Doctor nodded, wanting to distance himself from it. I was mad as hell, but I could see how much it was eating him up to say goodbye to her. It didn't seem to faze him about me, though. "To another world. And then it gets sealed off. Forever." He confirmed again as he tried to busy himself with another computer. "That's not going to happen."

The entire building shook out of nowhere. I barely managed to stay standing, but I lost my footing and stumbled away from the door frame. Pete, tired of the deliberation, began getting ready to leave. "We haven't got time to argue. The plan works. We're going."

"No, I'm not leaving him!"

Jackie and Pete began to argue, and it hurt a little to see it. Ever since the divorce, I couldn't stand parents fighting. As Rose tried to comfort her mother and tell her to go live with Pete, I ran solutions through my head. I could refuse to leave and stay. Okay, that was my only solution. I would just have to do what the Doctor and Rose did and hold on for dear life. I hadn't been planning for that, and I was an idiot for forgetting about the void stuff when I had seen the episode so many times. But it was the only way.

"If it helps, whatsoever, which I'm about 100% sure it won't," I started, and everyone looked at me. It seemed like they kept forgetting I was there. Thanks, guys. "I'm not going either. Not to jump on the Rose bandwagon, but it's not gonna happen." Rose seemed confused, but thankful that she wasn't the only one being difficult. Pete didn't much look like he cared whether I lived or died, not that I care at all what Pete thought, but the Doctor looked about to argue so I raised my voice to make my point. "No, just no, fuck no, sorry Jackie, but fuck no. All aboard the Not-Gonna-Happen train to Fuck-That-Ville. No. I don't know how many times I have to say it but _no_. Close your mouth, Doctor, because I ain't budging." I got him to close his mouth at least. "You know how many times I switched worlds? Once. And that's enough. I don't fancy a trip to another world. It isn't my world, so I don't really care about going there. I'm sure it's nice and all but nope. I got no family over there. Not that I have a lot of family in my old world, or a lot of family in this world either but at least here I have Regina. And I promised myself when Torchwood freaking kidnapped me that I would make it home to Regina. Now that could be in one piece, or that could be in twenty, but I will make it home to Regina. She's all I have, and I'm all she has. Not to mention she probably hasn't been feeding Mephistopheles. But that's not the point. I'm not going to another world, _another_ fucking world, where I don't have a family because I'm tired of being an orphan. Besides, who the hell knows if Pete's World, yes I called it that, has a version of me running around it already? I've been waiting to run into myself here. So no. I'm not going. I'd rather rip my arm off and beat you with it before I go jumping to another world. Are we clear?"

"Evie's right. It's not fair to make this decision for her." I had to struggle to keep my jaw from dropping as Rose defended me. I'd gotten the feeling she didn't like me, probably because she didn't really like other women who were too friendly with the Doctor, but maybe I'd been wrong. It wouldn't be the first time, and I suspected it wouldn't be the last. "And it's not fair to make this decision for me." She turned back to her mother, her voice soft and thick with emotion as she spoke to Jackie. "I've had a life with you for nineteen years. But then I met the Doctor and… All the things I've seen him do for me. For you, for all of us… For the whole stupid planet and every planet out there. He does it alone, Mum. But not anymore. 'Cause now he's got me." Behind her, Mickey was walking up with a button in his hand.

Wait, Mickey? It was supposed to be the Doctor who put it on her. This was different. What was the Doctor doing?

I got my answer as I watched Mickey drop the button over her head. At the same time as Rose started to ask what he was doing, I felt a cold chain hitting my neck. My head snapped to the side to see the Doctor standing next to me. Instead of Rose, he had put the yellow button in his pocket over my head. "No, wait, Doctor-"

There was a sucking feeling, like when you put the tube of a vacuum cleaner against your hand, over my whole body. Suddenly the bright white Ghost Shift control room was gone and I was standing with everyone in a similar looking room, only it was dark and torn apart. I had gotten pulled along with them to Pete's world when he had pressed the button. Rose and I met each other's eyes and some sort of understanding passed between us. This wasn't happening. No way. "Oh no you don't. He's not doing that to me again." she said bitterly before mashing the button on her chest.

I was already putting my hand over my own switch as she disappeared. I smiled at Jackie briefly. "Thanks for everything, Jackie. It was nice to feel like someone cared again. Take care of yourself. Here we go." Before they could do or say anything, I pressed the button and braced myself for that sucking vortex feeling.

As I reappeared in the brightly lit Torchwood room, I felt my stomach flip inside of me. I promptly pulled the chain from my neck and chucked it away from me. "And that's why I don't like roller coasters. Not doing that again."

The Doctor, who was standing at one of the computers, looked between Rose and me. "Once the breech collapses, that's it." Deciding to deal with her first, he stormed over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. I knew that he was angry only because he cared, but it still seemed rather harsh. "You'll never be able to see her again, your own mother."

Rose remained calm, staring him down. "I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never gonna leave you."

Realizing there was nothing he could do to talk her out of it, he turned and walked over to me. "This is your final choice, Evie?"

"What other choice do I have, Doctor?" I sighed, scratching my head. It wasn't like I could make any other choice besides this. "If I stay there, I'm just another orphan girl. I'm sure Jackie would have looked after me, but that's not my home. At least here, I can help save the world. Even if I die or I get sucked into the Void or hell or whatever you wanna call it, at least I died doing something worthwhile for once in my life. And I need to find out what's wrong with me, Doctor, why I don't exist. I can't do that there. I'm staying."

Rose moved to stand next to me, taking my hand in hers and squeezing it. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. "So what can we do to help?"

"Systems rebooted," the computer chimed again. "Open access."

The Doctor stared at the both of us, looking like he wanted to yell and hug us, or at least Rose, at the same time. "Those coordinates over there," he snapped, but it was clear he wasn't actually mad at us. "Set them all at six. And hurry up!"

I followed Rose over to the computer he'd pointed at and worked with her to start setting coordinates. We worked in silence for a few seconds before she glanced at the Doctor. Seeing that he was occupied with something else, she nudged me and started to whisper. "I'm sorry if I seemed cold earlier."

She had seemed distant towards me, but I was surprised she was apologizing. She didn't do it often. "Don't worry about it. It's been a weird day. And you're clearly in love with him so I get it."

She decided not to ask how I knew. "So are you."

I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn't, but then I realized she was partially right. I shifted my eyes over to where he worked on his own computer, hoping that he couldn't hear us. "I'm not in love with him, Rose. I don't know him well enough to be. It's more like… I'm in love with the idea of him. It's hard to explain. But I need him to help me figure myself out, which is more important than any of that."

"I want to ask you something, Evie. Don't argue, just listen." I nodded. I had a weird feeling about this. "I know you know about him. I can see it in the way you look at him, like he's something impossible and magnificent all at the same time. It's the same way I look at him, or so I've been told. But that's not important. Evie, if something happens to me, I want you to take care of him." Now I was really shocked. Rose was turning care of the Doctor over to me? I didn't even know if he would take me with him, but this was a big step for her. It meant that she trusted me with the thing she valued most, him. "He can't be alone. He was by himself when I met him, and I helped him heal, but he can't go back to that. He needs someone to be there, to argue with him and pull him back and keep him company. He'll never say it, but he gets lonely. So, if I don't make it, please, Evie, take care of him."

I knew how big of a deal this was for her, and I knew what would happen to her. So instead of arguing, instead of trying to reassure her like I normally would have, I just nodded. "I will."

The moment gone, Rose noticed something on the computer screen. "We've got Cybermen on the way up."

The Doctor jogged over to us, looking at the screen as well. "How many floors down?"

"Just one."

On the staircase, I remembered that Yvonne, in Cyberman form, was attacking the approaching enemies. I felt a pang of sympathy for her. At least she was able to do one useful thing in her life. The Doctor tapped a few more keys on his computer. "Levers operational."

Rose smiled when she noticed the angry look on his face had been replaced with a grin. "That's more like it, bit of a smile. The old team, plus one."

Of course, the Doctor didn't know any three person teams. "I was going to say Shiver and Shake, but they're missing a third."

"Didn't the Ghostbusters start off with three people?" I suggested, but I really had no clue. It had been years since I saw the Ghostbusters. "There's always the Three Musketeers? That's all I got, though."

He had grabbed the magna clamps from the desk and shoved one into Rose's arms. I followed her to the piece of wall behind the lever on the right and helped her hoist the clamp onto the wall. She pressed the red button when he said, sealing it in place. "When it starts, hold on tight. Shouldn't be too bad for us, but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void stuff."

I got in position to help Rose raise the lever. I would have killed to hang out with the Doctor on his side, as any normal Whovian fangirl would have, but I thought staying on Rose's side was more logical. In the episode, the lever had only fallen once but that didn't mean it wouldn't do it a second time now. Just in case something went wrong, I wanted to be able to fix it.

The Doctor looked between the two of us, giving us a smile and a nod. "You ready?"

"So are they." Rose was staring behind me, at the window in Yvonne's office where the Daleks were preparing to crash through.

"Let's do it!" The command given, we grabbed hold of the lever and lifted it up into position. It resisted more than I expected as we locked it in place.

As the computer notified, "Online," Rose and I quickly turned to grab onto the magna clamp. Almost immediately, the breech wall lit up into a blinding white light. It was like standing in the worst wind storm imaginable, and my legs lifted up off the floor from the suction of the Void. That sucking feeling had come back, intensified tenfold. I imagined this was what a tornado might feel like, or a giant vacuum cleaner. The Doctor yelled but I couldn't hear what he said over the sound, though I knew he yelled something about the Void. Past us, Daleks and Cybermen flew by, vanishing into the breech.

Next to Rose, I held on for dear life. I had hooked the elbow of my good arm around the bar and I had tried to position my injured arm in a way that wouldn't make the pain worse, but it hurt like a bitch anyway. The blood on my arm kept making it slip and I just hoped that I could hold on long enough to survive this.

I don't know how much time passed, or how many aliens were sucked into the Void, when sparks began flying out of the lever on our side. Part of me had been hoping that wouldn't happen, that it was something only for the episode. "Offline." The lever unlocked itself and, slowly, began inching its way back down. It wasn't by much but the suction was beginning to lessen. Rose and I reached for it, trying to grab the handle before the lever could go too far, but our arms were too short. The Doctor yelled to hold on, panicking, but Rose lost hold of the clamp and grabbed onto the lever. The look on his face grew more horrified by the second. Struggling, she managed to push the lever back into its place. "Upright and locked." But there was no way for her to make it back to the clamp, to safety.

She held onto the lever for her life, but I could see her fingers starting to slip. This was it; this was what was supposed to happen. Something screamed inside of me, though, and I found myself reaching my hand towards her. "Grab my hand!" With one hand still on the lever, Rose thrust the other one at me, almost missing but landing her palm in mine. "Hold on, Rose!" I could save her. It might have been wrong, and it might have screwed up the future, but I could save her. I couldn't just let her disappear forever.

I realized too late that I had given her the bad arm and the blood soaked hand. My arm was too weak from injury and blood loss to hold onto her, and her hand began slipping out of my mine moments after I had grabbed it. "_No_!" I should have given her the other arm. But even then I might have slipped off the manga clamp because of it. She lost the hand she had on the lever. I screamed as the other one slipped from my grasp, too slick to hold on to. As she tumbled backwards in the wind tunnel, I imagined the worst. I had failed, and she was going to die.

At the last second, Pete appeared as if out of nowhere, grabbing her right before she could be lost to the Void. She was able to take one last glance at the Doctor before Pete pressed the button, and they disappeared. Just like that, Rose was gone.

The breech stayed open for what felt like hours but, realistically, was probably only a few minutes before it began to close and the suction died down. I felt my legs lower back to the floor and heard the Doctor walk to the wall, mourning his loss. I let go of the clamp, leaning against the wall so I could catch my breath. I was exhausted in every possible way, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I closed my eyes for a second, immediately regretting it. The terrified look on Rose's face as she fell was playing on repeat behind my eyelids.

"We should get out of here, right, Doctor?" He didn't respond, so I opened my eyes to find him, but he wasn't in the room anymore. "Doctor?" I heard his footsteps down the hall. Was he leaving? What about me? I got to my feet as fast as I could and, ignoring the pain I felt everywhere and in my ankle, I rushed to catch up. When I made it to the hall, I saw the elevator doors closing behind him. "Doctor!" He couldn't do this. No, no, no. He couldn't just forget about me.

There was another elevator so I ran into that one and mashed the bottom floor button as hard as I could. If I remembered correctly, that's where they'd stored the TARDIS. How far down had he gotten already? Could I make it there before he left? As the elevator began making its way down, I screamed at the top of my lungs. Wait for me, Doctor. Please wait.

I knew it had taken too long to get to the bottom floor before I even stepped off the elevator. I could hear the groaning sound of the TARDIS dematerializing even as the doors opened. I knew he was leaving, but I ran to where the sound was coming from anyway. "Doctor, come back!" I screamed, hoping he would hear me like he had heard Donna on the show. "Doctor!"

I don't know how many times I screamed his name, even after the sound was gone. I stood there, waiting, hoping. Come back, Doctor. "Come back." I could hear how pathetic I sounded, my voice strangled as tears began falling down my cheeks. "Don't leave me…"

I think I stood there for fifteen minutes or so before I realized that he wasn't coming back. I couldn't stand there, in the remains of what was once the Torchwood Tower, for any longer than that. It brought up too many terrible memories, and now this was one of them. I know he was sad that he had lost Rose, but he had forgotten all about me. He had abandoned me. I was alone. Again.

If he hadn't come back yet, I doubted he ever would. So I turned around and left.

The streets of London were littered with destruction. Traffic lights and poles were left strewn across the ground. Cars were destroyed, some flattened and others with holes in them. Every so often, there was a dead body. I wasn't sure if less people had died than I'd thought, or if families had collected the remains of their loved ones already and that was why there were so few corpses lying around. I tried not to look at it for longer than I had to as I made my way through the wreckage to the estate where I lived, or had lived I supposed. My body screamed at me to stop, to collapse, but I couldn't. I had to find Regina.

Eventually, I made it. The building looked a little damaged, but intact for the most part. The fire hydrant in front of it had exploded and was spewing water like a fountain, soaking the ground that my bare feet walked on. I was thankful that we didn't live on one of the higher floors of the estate as I made my way up the stairs to the flat. The front door was still in one piece. Hopeful, I knocked.

A couple minutes passed by. Was she home? Had something happened to her? My mind raced with the possibilities of why she wasn't answering. I knocked again. "Regina?"

The lock clicked, and the door opened. Regina was standing there, completely untouched. Her jaw dropped when she saw me standing there. "Evie? Oh my God, Evie!" Instantly she wrapped her arms around me in what was likely the tightest hug she'd ever given me. "I thought something had happened to you! I thought you were dead! Holy snails, you look like you've been through a grinder. What happened?"

As I let her pull me into the living room to fawn over me, I looked at her, at the face of the woman I would never want anything bad to happen to. And then I realized, "I can't stay, Regina."

"Can't stay?" She stopped checking me over to scan my face for any signs of joking. "What do you mean you can't stay? This is your home. Of course you're staying." When she realized that I wasn't joking, her eyebrows knitted together. "What happened to you?"

I didn't exist, but I couldn't tell her that. It would lead into other conversations that I couldn't get into right then and there. Torchwood had been taken out but I had no idea if there were other people or creatures or whatever that would be coming for me because of it. There were still groups like UNIT out there and I don't know what else. For all I knew, in another month someone would come busting down the door to kidnap me again and Regina wouldn't let me go again without a fight. I could be putting her in danger just by standing there. "I can't tell you, Gi. But I'm in some trouble, and it's not my fault. I didn't do anything wrong, but there are some people after me. And if I stay here, it could put you in danger."

"Danger?" She didn't understand. How could she? She put her hand on my cheek, rubbing some of the dirt off my face. It was a familiar action, but it made my chest tighten. "Whatever trouble you're in, Dove, we can work it out together. That's what I signed up for when I adopted you, remember? You and me, through thick and thin. I'm supposed to protect you from danger, not the other way around."

I put my hand over hers and squeezed, trying not to cry. Not for the first time in my life, my home was being ripped away from me. How many more times would this happen before I could be happy? Was happiness even something I could achieve? "You know I love you, Gi, and this is the best home I've ever had. And I promise I'll come back and see you, but I can't put you in that kind of danger. You are too kind and amazing and wonderful and I would never forgive myself if I was the reason something happened to you. So, please, don't argue. You can't change my mind. I'm just gonna go and get some things, and then I'm going to leave." I dropped her hand and, before she could try and change my mind, I turned and walked down the hall towards my room.

She hadn't touched my room since I disappeared, which meant that she had believed I would come home at some point. It was a little dusty, but it was home, and leaving it would be the hardest thing I ever had to do. I didn't feel the need to bring a bunch of stuff with me, and I was pretty sure I couldn't carry a lot anyway. Grabbing the duffel bag I kept underneath my bed, I began pulling clothes out of my dresser and closet. I packed a couple changes of clothes and looked around the room. What else? I spotted the stuffed bear that sat on top of my pillows, the one I had used to sleep with every night before Torchwood. I placed that in the bag. I threw in my iPod and the charger on top of it.

After ten minutes, I had thrown a few other necessities in and my bag was packed. I went to leave the room, but I stopped with my hand on the door. I was missing something still. Leaning against the wall next to my closet was the guitar, in its black case, that Regina had gotten Evangeline for her birthday one year. I had managed to retain Evangeline's ability for playing and, before Torchwood, I had actually really loved it. It reminded me of Regina. I picked it up and slung the wide strap over my shoulder.

I had contemplated taking a shower before I left, but I decided against it. If I stayed too long, it might make me rethink my decision to leave. I put a new bandage on my arm and put an old ankle brace of Regina's on my foot instead. I wasn't sure how long it would be before I could get these taken care of, and I figured at the very least I should do something about them now. My arm was looking worse than ever, though. The wound was still bleeding quite a bit and the skin around it was inflamed and swollen. It was definitely infected, and it hurt like hell.

Now that I was patched up, it was time to leave. I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn't stay here. I met Regina in the living room. "I'm sorry, Gi. I don't want to do this, but I can't stay and endanger you like this. I know it's hard to understand, and I can't explain."

She pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head. "I love you, Evangeline, and as a parent, this is a terribly irresponsible thing to do. But, as someone who knows you, I know that there's no way of keeping you here if you're determined to leave. You'll just sneak out the window or something. Just… promise me you'll come back, if only to let me know you're still breathing and haven't lost any limbs yet."

I laughed into her shoulder. My eyes were watering again. "I promise. I'll be back."

She moved out of the hug, but gave my shoulders a squeeze. Her eyes were wet and red. "Be home by midnight?"

A laugh bubbled out of me and I found myself smiling. "Only if you will." I don't think anyone would ever understand exactly what that meant to us, but Evangeline and Regina had been saying it for as long as they had known each other.

Hoisting the guitar over one shoulder and my duffel bag over the other, I walked out the front door without looking back. If I looked, I would stay, and that was something I couldn't do. I took a deep breath and walked back down the stairs to the ground. Now that I had left, I had no idea where to go.

~X~

I walked around London for hours. I felt my energy draining rapidly as I moved about, and it took everything I had not to just fall on the sidewalk and stay there. Almost an entire day had gone by since I ripped open my arm again and it was still bleeding. I didn't think that was a good sign. But I had forced myself to start blocking out the pain so I could keep going, so there was that. I had no idea what I was doing, or where I was going. I was just wandering around. I think the official term was now homeless. Maybe I should just find an alley to hide in for the night. I was suddenly glad I'd thought to shove a blanket in my bag. I just wished I had some money to buy cigarettes with. After being holed up in Torchwood for a month, I was seriously craving a smoke, especially now that I was out and walking around people who were smoking.

As I wandered around, looking for an alley that didn't look to disgusting to sleep in, I came across something I would never see again. I stopped in front of the next alley I came across and peeked in, like I had been doing with every other alley. Sitting in the middle of the alley was the TARDIS.

I almost choked on the piece of gum I had been chewing. The Doctor had come back. I wouldn't be homeless because he had come back for me. I hobbled up to the TARDIS doors as fast as my exhausted legs would take me. Even the outside of it was magnificent. I had always known what color TARDIS blue was, but seeing it on the actual TARDIS in person made it so much more amazing. I loved that color. I raised my fist to knock on the door. But I never knocked.

Maybe he wasn't back for me. I had no way of knowing how long it had been for him since he abandoned me at Torchwood. It could be hours, or it could be years. He might not even have any idea who I was. And then I would just be some strange girl knocking on a police box in an alleyway. And he had left me behind, after all. Who's to say that he even wants me to go with him? He never asked or said anything about it, so maybe he was just planning on fixing my injuries and ditching me. He probably doesn't even care about me, aside from feeling bad that he didn't rescue me earlier. I was just getting my hopes up, and then he would crush them. "How could I be so stupid…" I muttered pathetically to myself.

I turned away and started walking out of the alley. I couldn't sleep there tonight, not with a giant blue box in the way. I heard a sound behind me as I was just about to turn down the sidewalk, and a voice. "Evie?" I stopped in my tracks, debating whether I was imagining things again. Maybe I was just willing myself to hear his voice. "Evangeline?"

I decided to look behind me and see if he was really there. Turning my head over my shoulder, I couldn't believe it. He had just stepped out of the TARDIS and was standing there, looking at me like I was bizarre. "Doctor?" I sounded weak. "What… What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you." For me? So he had come back to find me, after all. I would say I was relieved, but I was also really pissed. He had ditched me at Torchwood, and then what? He flew away and then remembered the sad girl he'd left behind? His eyes shifted between the duffel bag and the guitar case. "What are you doing?"

"I went home, Doctor. I went home and I saw Regina, and she's fine. But then I realized that m being there only puts her in danger. I don't know who else is out to get me, or what else. In ten years, Torchwood could come back to get me. Hell, tomorrow an alien could show up on my door step and take me away. Torchwood kidnapped me because I don't exist and I'm strange, and I don't know if that's going to happen again. But I know that Regina would die before letting someone take me away again. And I can't put her in harm's way like that." My arms were threatening to give out on me so I put my stuff down. "Even if I have to be homeless or go back to foster care, or whatever, it's better than knowing I'm the reason she got hurt, or worse." He looked slightly impressed with my decision, but I could see the sadness in his eyes and how much he was hurting. "I'm sorry, Doctor, that I couldn't save Rose."

"It's okay. You tried." He took a deep breath and tried to wipe the grief from his face. "But you, Evangeline Blackstone, are a very interesting girl. Do you know that?" With his long legs, he crossed the gap between us in two steps to stand in front of me, watching me curiously. "I did some research on you. It said that you were found, out of nowhere, when you were eight years old."

"That's old news, Doc. I know. I was there, sort of."

He raised an eyebrow. "Sort of, because you come from a different world. We have time now. Care to explain?"

I was quickly losing the battle between exhaustion and consciousness. I leaned against the brick alley wall, hoping to take some of the strain off. "I told you before, Doctor. Once upon a time, I was called Felicity and I was living a perfectly normal life, not so happy with a father who worked nonstop, a mother who had abandoned, a pretty awesome dog, and my best friend. Then I lost my dog and I got hit by a car when I was chasing after her. Next thing I know, I'm waking up as a blue haired English version of myself. I don't know if I died, or if I'm in a coma and my brain is trying to provide some entertainment. But here I am. Now my name is Evangeline and I have my memories of Felicity, but I also have a lifetime's worth of memories from Evangeline. I'm from a parallel world, but I have no idea why I'm here." I decided to ask the question I had wanted to ask all day, but was too afraid of what the answer was to actually say it. "Doctor, how is it possible that I don't exist, when I clearly do? I'm here. You can feel me, hear me, see me. I'm just like that stupid ass sphere, except that got to exist and I don't. But how… I just don't get it."

"It's impossible, Evie." That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I think he realized because he offered me an apologetic smile. "You're here, but everything says that you're not. The only thing I can offer you is the chance to figure it out."

Was this leading to what I thought it was? "How?" I pretended to be suspicious. He gestured a thumb behind him at the police box. "Are you going to arrest me, in your massively out of date wooden box?"

"It's not just a box, Evie."

"No, it's your spaceship, right?" His eyes widened just a little bit. I caught him off guard. Score one for me. "Well, you're obviously an alien and I watched you vanish in your blue box earlier, which leads me to believe it's some sort of ship." Why hadn't I asked Regina for smokes before I left? I wondered briefly if the Doctor would consider stopping by a convenience store for a pack. Maybe the TARDIS would produce them for me? Probably not.

He stepped back to pat the doors of his TARDIS. "You're clever. I like that. This, Miss Evangeline Blackstone, is my TARDIS." I raised my own eyebrow this time to feign confusion. "Stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. She travels anywhere in time and space. Backwards, forwards, side wards, upwards, downwards, you name it wards." He grew solemn once more. "Rose traveled with me… But it does get boring traveling by myself. You could come with me. See the stars, other planets, save lives."

He was asking me to go with him. I would have jumped for joy if I felt like I could jump and not break my ankle. This was what I had always wanted, except now I knew what it actually entailed. It was a scary thought, to face danger like I faced today every day. I would have to decide if it was worth it. But I didn't have to decide that today. "Gee, that sounds fun, Doctor." I went a bit heavy on the sarcasm there. I was going to accept, but not before I made my last point. "Except for one thing. You left me."

"I left you?"

I stood from the wall, letting my anger show now. He had left me behind, and he didn't even realize. "You left me behind, Doctor! I know it must have been hard to lose her, but I needed you, I needed your help, and you ditched me at Torchwood! The place that almost killed me a dozen times! You abandoned me and left me behind. I didn't think you were coming back. And then I had to walk the fuck home, with my twisted ankle. You say you want to help me and that I should travel with you, but how can I trust you?" I was yelling now, and people passing by the alley were giving me weird looks as they walked by.

The guilt he felt was clear as day on his face. Good. He deserved that. I don't care how badly you're hurting inside. That wasn't an excuse for abandoning me like that. "Evie, I'm sorry. I promise I will never abandon you like that again if you come with me, but I know that I'll have to earn your truth for you to believe me. But I can help you figure out why this is happening to you, and I can show you some magnificent things along the way. So come with me, Evie, please. What do you say?"

I wanted to yell some more but the hopeful look on his face and the way he raised his open hand to me made me smile. I had gotten my point across. "Sure, Doctor. Show me the universe."

With one hand he pushed open the TARDIS door behind him, and held the other out to me to take. "Come inside. I'll get your things."

This was it, the moment I had been waiting for. I was going to see the real TARDIS and travel across the universe with the Doctor. I took a step forward, and my vision went black. My legs gave out beneath me, spiraling me into darkness.

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><p>That was the longest chapter I ever wrote, I think. I'm so proud of myself! I hope you guys enjoy. It might be another week until I can update because school starts back up tomorrow and this semester is going to be hell, but I'll be working on it so don't worry!<p> 


	6. 6: Some Much Needed Rest

Hello lovelies! I'm going to try and not ramble a whole bunch today. School started this week so updating will have to slow down a bit. But this is the only story I'm really working on right now so it shouldn't be too bad, hopefully. This chapter is in between episodes so it's going to be a bit shorter than what I usually put out, and then next chapter will start the Donna Christmas Special. I'm so excited for that! I have some really good ideas to go with it so I think you guys will love it. This chapter will be starting off slightly differently, and I won't always be writing from Evie's perspective. Usually, it will be because I find it easier and more interesting than third person, but occasionally I'll switch to third for certain things, like this. Many thanks to anyone who added this to their favorite or follows list, and to those of you who reviewed: Mad Girl with a Keyboard, Izzy DeAngelo, Littlebirdd, CalicoKitty402, CaptainTheoLatch, ElysiumPhoenix, and Araneae Siqua. Again, this chapter won't be too long since it's not an episode but I'm excited for this chapter all the same. Enjoy!

**Mad Girl with a Keyboard:** I was wondering where you were last chapter! You're very welcome :) I don't plan on stopping writing, especially not on this, so don't worry.

**Izzy DeAngelo:** The last part was before Donna. The Doctor hasn't talked to Rose yet. He'll deal with that this chapter, and then next chapter will start the Donna journey. I really wanted Evie to be there for Donna because I plan on continuing this story through season 4 and maybe after so I thought, at the very least, she should meet Donna now. Plus, like I said, I have some ideas to make the episode fun. But, to answer your question, everything so far has been pre-Donna, including this chapter.

**CaptainTheoLatch:** I'll probably thin out the amount of swearing she does as we go further but I'm really trying to make her a realistic American teenager. Even though Evangeline is English, the Felicity side of her is American so she's retained the American mindset. And I want her to be realistic and sort of rough around the edges and, understandably, she's frustrated and pissed off about everything that's happened to her so far. And, at least in New Jersey, teenagers and young adults tend to curse a lot, including me, so I figured it would make her more realistic. And that's just kind of how I made her; she's just someone who swears a lot. But I was planning on thinning out the f-bombs and other things as the story goes on so don't worry about it.

**ElysiumPhoenix:** I loved letting her yell at the Doctor like that. I was waiting for it the whole chapter :P She's definitely not someone who just lets things happen so look forward to seeing her stubbornness a lot more.

**Araneae Siqua:** Don't worry! This chapter shouldn't be too much of a cliffhanger, and I'll try to use them more sparingly. They're just so darn tempting!

_**Disclaimer**_: I would like to say, before starting this chapter, that I have only extremely recently begun watching Classic Who. I'm not even eight episodes in yet. Therefore, I have very sparse knowledge of the inner workings of the TARDIS. They don't go into much detail about how medical care on the TARDIS works or how bedrooms work or any of that in New Who so to those of you who have seen Classic Who and know that I'm probably butchering how the TARDIS works, please don't hate me! I have no knowledge of any of this, so I had to make it up as I went along. If, however, you do know how these things work and want to tell me, feel free! I welcome any advice or tips you might have on how to better write things going on in the TARDIS.

Chapter 6: Some Much Needed Rest

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><p><em>"I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"<em>

_Ernest Hemingway_

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><p>~3rd Person~<p>

"What do you say?" The Doctor asked the strange blue haired girl standing before him with the angry look on her face and bags at her feet. He leaned back against his TARDIS, pushing the door open with one hand as he reached the other out towards her, inviting her to join him. The Time Lord had to admit he was hopeful. When he had left Evangeline Blackstone at the Torchwood Tower after the battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen, he had spent a few hours just floating through space, gathering his thoughts. Rose was gone. As much as it broke his heart and he wished more than anything that he could jump the Void over to Pete's World and take her back, he knew that he would have to accept it. She was gone, and she couldn't come back. The breech was closed and the Void sealed off. There would be no more travel between parallel dimensions.

That meant that this girl, this impossibility who was staring at him with wide multi-colored eyes, couldn't go home either. Any other day, any other adventure, he would have said that she couldn't be from a parallel world. Travel between them was impossible in itself. He would have called her crazy. But seeing how easy it was for Pete, Mickey, Jake, and the others from their world to cross the Void into this one had made him realize that it was entirely possible for her to have done the same. He wasn't sure how she had made the jump, but he knew from the Void stuff he had seen around her meant that she had, somehow. Whether her story about being just an average girl was true or not, he couldn't be positive. To cross parallel dimensions was a tricky thing and required more power than she seemed to have. She'd made no mention of anything that would have helped her. Even the buttons that Pete carried used a massive amount of power in order to pull them into a different dimension. How could a singular girl have done that? And, if her story was true, how had she ended up looking differently than she originally did, and how had she wound up with an established life here? There were too many things about this girl that didn't add up, that were impossible.

So while the Doctor wasn't entirely sure if he wanted another companion, he knew he had to ask Evie to be one. He was hopeful that it would turn out well. Rose had been right; it did get rather lonely traveling without someone by his side. Evie could, and would, never replace Rose. No one could. He had loved Rose, as much as it hurt now to admit it. He still loved her. But, at the very least, having Evie around might ease the pain that often came with loneliness. Now he just needed an answer.

A few seconds later, she gave him one. She'd had every right to be mad at him. He had abandoned her to the place where she'd been tortured for the last month. He had been blinded by his grief and rage over losing Rose, and had forgotten Evie in his rush to leave the place. It had given him time to think and to decide to ask Evie to join him, but it wasn't fair to Evie. He had promised to help her. To her, it had looked like he'd broken that promise. So he could forgive her for getting angry. He waited for more yelling, to say she couldn't travel with an alien she couldn't trust. Yet again, this human girl amazed him as he watched the struggle, visible to him, she went through, debating with herself whether to continue yelling or not. It was a feat for her, but she forced the rage inside of her to melt away. He would have taken her bitter words with patience, and he found himself impressed, not for the first time that day with her, by her ability to put it aside. She smiled. He noticed that, the few times he had seen her manage to smile over the course of the day's events, it always seemed forced, lifting one side of her mouth more than the other and never getting more than halfway to meeting her eyes. Eyes that now looked dull and lifeless. "Sure, Doctor," she answered him, sounding unsure of herself and trying to look confident. "Show me the universe."

Evie began reaching for her things on the ground but the Doctor, noticing how she strained even just to bend over that tiny bit, snapped the fingers of the hand held out to her, gaining her attention again. "Come inside. I'll get your things." He was certain she wouldn't be able to pick them up again after putting them down, and there was no need for her to feel weak. Not after what she'd been through.

She nodded. Though she didn't say it, the held in breath she struggled to release once he spoke told him that she was grateful that she didn't have to attempt it. It also told him that she was going to be the kind of girl who wouldn't ask for help very often, if at all. She took a step towards him. It was then, as her bare foot met the ground, that she couldn't go any further. The Doctor, watching her closely, noticed the light leaving her eyes and rushed forward to catch her as her knees buckled underneath her. He wrapped his arms around her, letting her collapse into him, before she could hit the ground. "Humans," he couldn't help but mutter under his breath, although she could not hear him now. "You're going to be a handful, aren't you?" She didn't answer.

With one arm holding her under the shoulders, he swept her up against his chest with his other arm under her knees. Her skin felt like ice and she shook almost as if she was enduring an earthquake. He shook his head with a sigh. He would have to talk to her about this, if this kind of thing continued to happen. He realized that she was having trouble trusting him after leaving her behind, and that was understandable. But with her agreement, she was officially a member of the TARDIs and that meant that she was his ward now, under his care. She would have to learn to start asking for help, before she fell apart. He knew she was exhausted, but he hadn't realized to what extent. He would just have to see how things went.

As he carried her through the TARDIS door, the Doctor made a mental note to come back for her things once she was settled. Evie hadn't brought much with her. He'd be surprised if there were more than three changes of clothes in that duffel bag she'd brought. But the small amount of things she'd decided to take with her when she left her home meant that what she had taken was most likely incredibly special to her. He wouldn't leave her things behind like he'd left her, something he had decided he would apologize again for when she woke up.

He was relieved, however, that she had decided to accept his proposal and travel with him. It made things much easier. If she hadn't agreed, then he would have had to come up with something else. She was far too dangerous to leave on her own, for multiple reasons. There was the dilemma of her not existing. He had scanned her with his Sonic Screwdriver himself, not trusting Yvonne Hartman to tell him the truth about her, but it had come up as reading that nothing was there. That meant she wasn't giving off any energy to scan. That wouldn't have been a problem, except she was clearly there. He could touch her and feel her, yet it said she wasn't there. He would have to run more tests in order to be sure, but he doubted they would give any accurate results. According to everything so far, she didn't exist. She shouldn't be there. But she was, and that made her impossible. Even more impossible than the Void ship had been because, at least, he knew why it was impossible and where it had come from. Evie had come from a parallel world. She said she had gotten hit by a car, which meant that she was probably dead in the world she'd come from. A coma wouldn't have transferred her mind to another world like that. But, if she had died, then why did her mind cross the Void and jump into another body? Even further, how had it managed to jump into a body that looked exactly like her, according to Evie? There were too many questions.

He couldn't leave her on her own. The other reason for wanting—no, needing—her to join him on the TARDIS was the simple fact that she was dangerous. Evie herself might not have been dangerous, but the idea that Torchwood had kidnapped her to test her was unsettling. He had no way of knowing if there were others out there looking for her, for worse reasons. There was also no way to tell if the fact that she shouldn't exist was going to cause a problem. It could be affecting her, or the world around her. Before he knew just how it all worked, he couldn't let her wander around alone. The only solution was to keep her with him, where he could keep an eye on her and protect her, if need be.

The last reason he had decided to invite her onto the TARDIS was the most bizarre one, even more so than her not existing. He wasn't sure if Evie was aware of it, but she seemed to have knowledge of things she couldn't know. He had first noticed it when Evie was talking to Yvonne. More than anything, Evie had wanted the Torchwood woman to die for what she had done and put Evie through. The Doctor frowned on wishing death on others, but it was easy to see where Evie was coming from. Although the fact that, after Yvonne had died, Evie seemed happy about it did bother him. She seemed to feel no remorse about the fact that Yvonne had suffered one of the worst deaths imaginable and possible, and then continued to wonder if the others who had caused her pain were dead as well. He understood that kind of rage well. Evie was hurting, and she wanted revenge. He only hoped that he could get her to see that death wasn't an answer. But Yvonne had died, whether Evie wanted it or not, and what bothered the Doctor most was that Evie had almost predicted it. She had seemed so certain of Yvonne's inevitable death. He could have let that go, but then she had done it again with Mickey. He hadn't introduced her to anyone so she should have only known Jackie's and Pete's name at that point. But when Mickey offered to help her walk, she thanked him, using his name. She couldn't have known what his name was, considering that he had been going by the name Samuel undercover. Her excuse of being good with names was a terrible excuse, at that. It was then that the Doctor had decided he would have to keep an eye and see if she'd known anything else she shouldn't have. Everything had gone fine after that until just a few minutes ago. He had been looking at the monitor of the front door of the TARDIS when Evie had walked into the alley he'd parked in, right up to the door of the box. She had been ready to knock on it and, for whatever reason, decided against it. She said that she had seen the Police box disappear from Torchwood after he left. Was that enough to make it logical for her to knock on it? He knew that Rose hadn't told her about it. The two girls had done their best to keep him from hearing their conversation in the final moments before closing the breech but, with his enhanced Time Lord hearing, he had been able to eavesdrop easily, and Rose had made no mention how who the Doctor was or what he used to travel in. Had she known the Doctor was inside of the blue Police box? Evie might not have even realized what she was doing, but he had to keep an eye on it.

The Doctor glanced down at the unconscious stranger in his arms. That was, after all, what she was: a stranger, in more ways than one. She was impossible and, from what he had seen so far, stubborn, loud, temperamental, and angry. But he had also glimpsed a side of her that was caring, kind, and determined. He had no idea what to make of her yet. The one thing he did know, as he walked into the TARDIS's infirmary to lay Evie down on one of the medical beds and begin working on her, was that she was going to prove to be a handful.

~X~

~Evie~

"_Come back, Felicity, we won't hurt you!"_

Liars! That's all they wanted to do, hurt me. That's all anyone wanted to do, ever.

I couldn't see. Everything around me was pitch black. I knew I was running, but I couldn't see where. I had to get away from them. _I had to_.

"_Let us run more tests on you, Evangeline."_

"_We promise it won't hurt, Felicity."_

I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Beneath me, my legs scurried as fast as they could go. But where was I going? I could hear them behind me. I hadn't seen them, but I knew they were there. They wore the voices of Ed and Toupee, but their feet made thunderous metallic echoes. Leave me alone! I clutched at my throat, panicking. Where had my voice gone?

Ahead of me, a light flickered on, lighting up the empty tiled area below it. I looked to see where the light was coming from, but there was no source. There was no light bulb, no lamp. There wasn't even a ceiling, just the black void above me. I could see if I stood in the light. I could see them coming. I willed a burst of speed into my feet, almost toppling onto the illuminated tile when I reached it.

"_Give us your heart, Felicity."_

"_We want to rip your pretty little heart out, Evangeline. Let us test it."_

"_Let us find out if it exists."_

I slapped my hands over my ears, trying to block out their voices, but I could hear them through my palms. My heart? No, you can't have my heart! I tried to yell, only to feel my throat closing up on me. I was struggling to breathe now. You can't have my heart! I can't live without my heart!

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I spun around, not ready to face them but having no choice. What I met wasn't Ed and Toupee. Two Cybermen stood in front of me, with Ed's and Toupee's voices coming out of them. _"Are you really living, Evangeline?"_

"_How can you live if you don't exist?"_ Ed's voice started to laugh.

The Cyberman with Toupee's voice lifted its arm and, before I could do anything to stop it, thrust it forward, punching its hand straight through my chest. I felt the skin tear open with blinding pain. My vision was nothing but white spots; the silver of the Cybermen was hardly visible through the polka dots. A fist closed around my heart. Inside of me, I felt the blood flow slowing down. I couldn't breathe. I was fading. _"Poor Felicity."_ Maniacal laughter echoed through my head. _"Something that doesn't exist doesn't need a heart. It's not even alive."_

My heart still enclosed in its hand, the Cyberman ripped it out of my chest.

I sat up with a start, my eyes flying open. Bright lights greeted my pupils harshly, causing them to close my eyelashes over the breach. A piercing screech reached my ears, and my throat felt raw and dry. It took me a moment to realize that I was the one making that awful noise; I was screaming.

"Evie?" I was shaking. "Evangeline!" Correction: someone was shaking me.

Forcing a breathe into my aching lungs, I cut off the scream coming from me and looked at the person holding my shoulders. "Doctor?" He was standing over me, his dark eyes scanning my face, concerned. The Doctor? Why was he here?

The memories from before my nightmare came rolling back through my mind. That's right; he had saved me from Torchwood, and then left me there. I'd found his TARDIS. He had asked me to see the stars with him, but everything after that was blank. Had I passed out? "What happened?"

I took a moment to look at my surroundings. Where was I? Logic told me I was on the TARDIS. The room around me was white—white walls, white ceiling—and even the tiles on the floor were the color of snow. There was strange machinery all around the room that I didn't recognize and I couldn't even hazard a guess at what any of it was called or what it did. I was sitting up on some sort of bed, like a hospital gurney except it was much more comfortable than any hospital bed I'd ever been in, with removable hand bars on both sides. It was attached to one of the alien machines, just like the square monitor above me that read off a multitude of different numbers. This must have been the hospital on the TARDIS. I had never seen it on the show, but I had heard about it being used a few times in Classic Who. I found myself suddenly wishing I had found time to watch the old episodes.

The Doctor stared up at the monitor before turning back to me. "You, Evie, collapsed. Should have told me you were 'bout to drop. Between the exhaustion and the blood loss from your arm, frankly, I'm surprised you made it that long without keeling over. In the future, I want you to tell me when you need help." He said that part with a slightly scolding tone, like he was upset that I hadn't trusted him enough to tell him I felt like crap. Was he surprised? He'd abandoned me. I couldn't have expected him to ask me to join him on the TARDIS, so why would I have mentioned that I felt like I was dying?

I nodded, if only to appease him. Next to me, I grabbed the band bar and slid it to the side, unlocking it and lowering it out of the way. I didn't take my eyes off him, waiting for him to continue explaining, as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Once I felt my feet touch the surprisingly warm floor, I pushed myself away from the bed, testing my ability to stand before I tried to walk. "So I passed out? Then what?"

The way he held his arms out tentatively around me suggested that he didn't think I should be up walking just yet. Tough. "Well, you said yes to letting me show you the stars. That means you're under my care now. So I picked you up and carried you to the infirmary. Right now, you're inside the TARDIS."

"Your TARDIS has its own hospital?" I pretended to sound surprised. Though, in truth, I was somewhat in awe because that meant I was in the TARDIS, which is something I had never imagined happening in a hundred years.

The Doctor nodded, looking around at his ship with pride. "And more. I'll have to give you the proper tour when you're feeling up to it. I brought you to the infirmary, and patched you up. Then I ran some tests-"

The second he said that word, my blood ran cold. My heart began to beat so hard in my chest that I could hear the blood pounding in my ears and I could almost feel it running underneath my skin. Images of needles and bruises, pain and screaming, flashed through my mind and filled my eyes. Tests were bad. No more tests. I couldn't breathe. "No tests, no more…"

Before I knew what I was doing, my legs were moving, carrying me from that torment bound room and out the door. Doors flew by me as I ran down the hall. I heard someone calling my name but I couldn't stop. A memory of a knife, skin being torn from me. And then there was a wall. I managed to slow myself down enough so I didn't crash into it, all the while looking for a door or a turn to escape through. There was nothing. It was a blank dead end.

"Evie."

I spun around, shrinking back into the wall. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes. "_How could you_?" I found myself screaming at the Doctor, who had chased after me and now stood there looking bewildered. "How could you, Doctor? Without my permission? How could you do that to me? I trusted you! You're just like… I trusted you…" I was shaking uncontrollably, no matter how hard I tried to make it stop, and my eyes stung as dampness dripped down my cheeks.

Even through my blurry vision, I could see a flash of understanding pass over him. "Evie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have… I should have realized your aversion to testing." I shuddered. "I'm an idiot. 900 years old and an idiot, me. I'm so sorry."

He reached towards me but I backed up as far as I could into the wall, trembling still. "Don't touch me," I snapped, sounding harsher than I meant to. In my mind, all I could see were Toupee's hands as he stabbed me with needles over and over until my skin was bloody and raw. "Please, Doctor…" I lowered my voice, sounding far more pathetic than I had wanted. "I can't…"

Instantly he withdrew his hands. "Okay, I won't touch you. Not unless you tell me it's okay. Deal?" Okay, I could do that. I nodded. "See, alright, it's going to be okay. Deep breaths, Evie, in and out. Can you do that?" He sucked in a breath slowly and exhaled it through his nose, demonstrating.

I tried to imitate him, the breaths I took becoming less and less shaky with each one. Slowly I could feel the tremors rolling through me begin to subside and the heat left my face. His smile widened as I calmed. My head drooped slightly as I breathed. I suddenly felt exhausted all over again. Now that I was able to focus once more, I noticed something different about me as my head hung and I looked at myself. For starters, I was no longer wearing the crap colored Torchwood scrubs. I was still barefoot, but now I was wearing some strange hospital gown looking thing. It was a pastel blue and stopped a little above my knees, but it tied on the left side and was slightly more form fitting than the standard hospital gown. The second thing I noticed was that I was covered in weird blue patches all over the place. They ranged in size from large enough to wrap around my whole midsection, which I could feel as I moved now that I was registering things like a normal person again and not acting like a psycho, to tiny, like the round little bandaids you get in assorted size boxes that are never good for anything. Of course, they were the same color blue as the TARDIS. That didn't surprise me. I lifted my head to look at the Doctor once more, feeling calm once more. I wasn't sure I could handle being touched again at the moment, but I at least had the mental capacity to realize that he had meant no harm. I could forgive, as long as he never did it again. "Three things, Doc."

"Yes, Evie?" He seemed eager to undo the wrong he'd committed. That was something already; at least he recognized the mistake, unlike everyone at Torchwood.

I held my index finger up as a point markers as I tallied off the first thing I wanted to discuss. No, discuss wasn't the right word. Demand? "One, I am going to ask you to _please_ never do that again." I wouldn't take no for an answer, but I would try to be nice about it. "Unless it's a matter of life or death, I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't do any other kinds of te…" I started to say the word, but an powerful involuntary shudder passed through me and I knew I couldn't. That word was forever tainted by those Torchwood assholes. "Work. If you wouldn't do any other 'work' on me without my permission."

His tone was soft, understanding, as he spoke. "Promise. Unless it means saving your life or letting you die, of which I will always choose to save your life, I'll ask before I do anything."

"Thank you." That was one weight gone. I raised a second finger. "Second, what the hell are these blue things?" I waved my arm at him, which was covered in a few small patches over my upper arm and one larger one that covered my whole forearm.

"They're mending patches," he said matter-of-factly. I stared at him blankly. Mending patches? I could understand the context behind the phrase, but that didn't mean I knew what the hell they were. "I couldn't very well just leave your injuries untreated, could I? You have the wound on your arm, the twisted ankle, and two dozen other scrapes and bruises covering you. I put a little bit of mending gel, a topical gel that's designed to heal superficial wounds, over them all. The blue patches are made of nanites, to speed up the process so you can get back on your feet and I can show you the universe. Is that okay?" He was referring to the no testing agreement.

Nanites? That word was familiar. Were they the things from the Empty Child episodes that put the boy back together? Maybe. But I could live with that. I poked the spot on my arm, covered by a patch, where the piece of skin was missing. It was still a little tender, but the pain had definitely improved. It was a relief not to be throbbing all over the place for the first time in what felt like forever. "It's fine, Doctor. Thank you. I'm feeling much better now that I think about it." It technically wasn't testing. There were no needles involved or injections of any sort. Just a gel, and a patch; the equivalent of Neosporin and a bandage. There was just one more thing to address. "My third question, Doctor, is what the hell is _this_?" I asked, gesturing towards the ridiculous hospital gown that I was wearing. "Where are the clothes I was wearing?"

His face flushed slightly and he stammered. "Well, you see, Evie…" Holy crap, was he going to say what I think he was? No, please, no. "The clothes you got from Torchwood were filthy, and had some blood on them from the…" I tensed, and he must have noticed because he skipped to the next part. "So I thought it would be better to put you in something clean. For healing. And I thought it might be easier on you if you didn't wake up with that reminder." Okay, so good intentions. "That was the only thing the infirmary had to offer, clothes wise. I figured it would be good enough until you could see the wardrobe or a closet. So I got rid of the scrubs you were wearing, and put… you… in… this." He said the last part slowly, waiting to see how I reacted.

At first I almost screamed, ready to bitch at him for invading my privacy like that and for changing me without my consent. I would have been fine waking up in m Torchwood crap. But then I realized I could only say that now after having woken up. If I had opened my eyes to see myself in them, would I have been okay, especially after that nightmare? Or would I have panicked, thinking I was back in that hell? I didn't notice what I was wearing when I first woke, maybe because the hospital gown didn't remind me of that trauma. It reminded the Evangeline side of my memories of a different kind of trauma, however. Taking a deep breath, I sighed. "It's fine, Doctor." The Time Lord looked relieved that I wasn't screaming at him again. "You had good intentions. I can let it go. As long as it never gets mentioned _ever_ again."

"Never. Agreed."

"I'm sorry, Doctor, about freaking out and for being such a pain in the ass." I was still a little peeved about him running tests on me without my permission. How many companions had he had over his lifetime? You would think a 900 year old Time Lord would have thought that, after what I'd been through, I might be a little 'work' shy. Or terrified. But he hadn't meant any harm and I could forgive him for that. I felt bad, because he had only been trying to help me. "This has been my first terrible experience with science and medical stuff, but I'm part of Evangeline now and she's had a lifetime worth of being mistreated by hospitals. I have her memories and her feelings, and between what she's been through and what I just went through with Torchwood, it's enough to make anyone go crazy."

That caused him to raise an eyebrow. Had he not researched that far into me? "You, or the girl you are now, had trouble with a hospital?

I nodded, unsure of how much to tell him. If I explained that Evangeline had spent her life obsessed with aliens, to the point where she used to point out people on the street that she thought were aliens in disguise, would he find that strange? Maybe I should keep that to myself. "She was holed up in a hospital for a couple years. They called her delusional, although I know from her memories that she's not. It was a lot like Torchwood, actually. They did whatever they could to convince her she was insane, and they medicated her like crazy. But they would never listen to her. And I know that I didn't experience it first hand, but all of her memories and feelings are mine now so I have it in my head. But I don't want to get into it right now." That would have to suffice. I don't think I could have told him anymore without him getting curious or suspicious, or both. "So, um, Doctor, tell me, what were the results of the, uh, 'work'?"

The curious, wondering look on the Doctor's face was replaced by confusion and a soft smile. I doubted the results had been helpful. "They were what I expected, but that doesn't mean I liked them. They said you have no weight, or mass. The bed you were on has a built in scale, but it didn't register that you were even on it. Except you clearly do. I carried you into that infirmary and I felt your weight. You feel a little underweight if anything but that's nothing a normal diet won't fix, considering what you probably haven't been eating for the last month. I tried to scan you and even monitor your vitals, but it all came up blank, as in it wasn't registering that there was anything for it to scan or keep track of. The machines can't see you." As he spoke, I felt the hope that I'd had of him figuring out what was wrong with me slipping away. If he had no idea why these machines couldn't detect me, then I didn't think anyone ever would. "All that tells me is that you're impossible, because _something_ should be able to see you. This entire situation is impossible, but it's not because this situation is happening. Everything says you aren't standing here before me, but you are." I must have looked dejected and hopeless, which was exactly how I was feeling at that moment. "Don't worry, Evie. We'll figure it out."

If I could count on one thing, it was that the Doctor was never one to give up on something that puzzled him, and my nonexistence clearly did. The knowledge that he meant what he said, even if it was only to solve this mystery, made me feel a little bit better. But if there was one other thing I knew, it was that I could really go for a smoke. I hadn't been able to in a month, and all this stress was only making the need for one worse. I doubted he would go for it, but I decided to ask. "Any chance of stopping by a convenience store or something?"

"What?" The bewildered look on his face was priceless. He acted like no one had ever asked him that before. Maybe they hadn't. The TARDIS had everything a person could want: food, beds, a pool. But I doubted that the girl would supply me with cigarettes to feed my addiction. "Why?"

I reached up to scratch my head, cringing at the grease and grime I could feel clinging to my hair, and tried to say the next sentence in the best way possible. "I, uh, need to pick up a pack of smokes."

"Absolutely not!" I gathered that most of his companions had never asked him for those before either. He looked disgusted by the idea that someone wanted to buy cigarettes. "The TARDIS is a smoke free zone. No cigarettes allowed. Smoking! Don't you know how bad that is? Every time you put one in your mouth you take eight minutes off your life."

"Like I haven't heard that from Regina a million times before, Doctor. Besides, maybe it's not. It could be having no effect on me because of my lack of existence. You have no idea. So until we figure that out, I plan on continuing it. And it's really only a stress relief kind of habit. I only smoke when I feel overwhelmed, which I do right now, immensely." At the mention of feeling overwhelmed, I suddenly realized that I hadn't questioned him about the size of the TARDIS yet. Every person who ever walked into the TARDIS was shocked by it, and I should be no exception. I mean, I was completely shocked because of the fact that I was standing in the real live TARDIS, in front of the real live Doctor. But it might seem strange if I never actually commented on it. Pretending that I didn't know anything about Doctor Who was proving to be harder than I'd thought. "Speaking of being overwhelmed, you said we're in the TARDIS right? As in that wooden blue box I saw in the alley? That tiny ass thing?" I gestured to the hallway around us. "So a wooden box turns into this? Is this it, or do you have another hundred rooms in here? You have like an entire universe in here."

The smile on his face fell hard for a moment, which probably meant he was waiting for me to give him the "bigger on the inside" line. Don't get me wrong; I loved that line. But I wanted to be different. Everyone always said that, or some variation of it. Recovered from the disappointment, the Doctor looked around his ship with pride. "Oh, you didn't say the line. Everyone always says the line. It's my favorite line! The TARDIS is bigger on the inside! You've seen the infirmary, but there's the console room, the pool, the library, the bowling alley, the kitchen… I'll give you a tour once you've had a chance to rest."

Almost as if on cue, a yawn erupted out of me. I put my hand up to cover it, half attempting to hide it, but then I realized that my body was trying to tell me that I should hit the sack. I wouldn't be useful on any adventures if I was falling asleep, or passing out.

"But we can talk more about all of this later. Right now you need to get some sleep. Follow me, Evangeline Blackstone, let me show you to your room." He said that last part in a very proper imitation of something like a butler with a grin, and stepped to the side to allow me room in the hallway to walk next to him. "Each bedroom has its own bathroom so you can get cleaned up. I'm betting Torchwood didn't give you that luxury." I shook my head. I could definitely use a shower. "And then you can get some sleep before we head out on your first adventure. Well, first adventure with me. Well, first adventure through time and space. Resting will help you heal faster."

I joined him and he started leading me down the hall. I was happily surprised to notice that my ankle, with a blue patch wrapped around it much like my arm, was no longer bothering me. That was good, considering how much running the Doctor did. I couldn't run with a twisted ankle, could I? I gave a small snort at his sleep diagnosis. "You sound almost like a real doctor, Doctor."

"Oy," he said, feigning offense, as we turned a corner and passed by another handful of rooms, all with closed doors. "How do you know I'm not? I could be a brilliant doctor, for all you know."

"Are you?"

"No." I started to laugh again. "Be quiet, you. I could be, if I wanted to. But I don't."

"Sure," I said, exaggerating and drawing it out.

We walked in silence for a few minutes, turning another few corners. The vastness of the TARDIS was amazing. They had never really showed it on the show, except for that little bit with Amy and Clara. But even then, I knew it was just a TV show set and the only bits they showed were what was made for the episode. Here, it was real and it was the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen. This place could go on forever, if the TARDIS wanted it to.

"In your world," the Doctor started to say after staring at me for a second. "The one you came from, were you an orphan there, too?"

I nodded. I didn't mind the personal questions; I could answer them easily enough without giving anything away about Doctor Who. "Yeah. Just like Evangeline, I woke up on day on the street with no memories from before that. I have no idea who my biological parents are, or any clue what happened to them or me. A married couple found me and apparently liked me so much that they adopted me. But then they got divorced a few years later, and my mother left. It's been just me and Dad for the last five years. I know technically he isn't my real dad but he's the only one I ever knew, and he never treated me like I was anything other than his daughter. I just hope he's doing okay without me, and I really hope he found Athena." Seeing the Doctor's confused look at the name of the Greek goddess, I added, "Our dog. The one I was chasing when I got run over. I don't think he could handle losing me and her at the same time."

"You really love your family," the Doctor noticed, looking at me with a smile.

"Yeah," I shrugged. "Family's important. I mean, don't get me wrong, I hate my mother with a burning passion for ditching us like that. But when family sticks around, they're important. And, technically, Regina is Evangeline's family and not mine, I love her like family, too. That's why I couldn't stay. I don't think I could forgive myself if something happened to her and I knew it was my fault. I'm just glad you came along, Doc. I might have been stuck living on the streets for who knows how long." I tried to laugh like it was nothing but the reality of that situation had just dawned on me. If the Doctor hadn't decided to come back for me, then I would have had to sleep in an alley. Of course, if he hadn't abandoned me at Torchwood in the first place, I wouldn't have had to worry about that.

"And we are here." The Doctor stopped so abruptly that I bumped into his arm. The hallway didn't look any different than the other hallways we'd walked through. How the hell was I going to tell this hall apart from the others and find my room ever again? Hopefully the TARDIS would help me. As soon as I thought that, I felt a hum vibrate through my mind. Was that the TARDIS? "Go ahead, Evie. Pick one. If the door opens, you can have the room and the TARDIS will accommodate for you."

Accommodate? What did that mean? Shrugging it off, I walked forward down the hall. The hallway was long and there were about twelve doors, with six on each wall. The Doctor said I could have any one of them as long as I could open it. Why wouldn't I be able to open it? I suppose that was a question for another day. Now which door...

Picking one at random, the fourth door down on the right side, I placed my hand on the door knob. I took a deep breath and, without looking back at the Doctor, I twisted the knob. The knob turned in my palm. It wasn't locked. I think my heart skipped a beat as I slowly pushed it open, preparing myself for whatever stellar room awaited me.

I was surprised, though I wasn't sure if it was happily, to see my own bedroom staring back at me. Or Evangeline's bedroom, I should say, though I had adopted it as mine while I was at Regina's. When I had been living in it, it felt like it belonged to me. Then I had gotten kidnapped, and it was just a part of Evangeline's life that I had invaded. The only thing that hadn't felt distant and unfamiliar to me was Regina, although if she knew that I wasn't really Evangeline she would probably hate me. Evie's room had only been slightly different from my room as Felicity. My once blue walls were royal purple and the blue and white striped bedspread was her blue and purple polka dotted one now. The fluffy beige carpet was the same, however, as my bedroom in Albany, and I loved that. The walls were bare of the papers I'd once hung there, with my inspirational quotes and animal pictures that got me out of bed in the morning, and the quote I'd painted on the wall behind the bed. Some decorating would need to be done if I was going to stay on the TARDIS for an extended period of time. There was a mahogany desk in the corner of the room that I did recognize as something of ours, but the chest, made of the same wood, in front of the bed was foreign to me. The TARDIS seemed to have replaced the dressed I'd owned with the chest and, hopefully, a larger closet since the one in my own room had been too small for much, which was the point of the dresser. There was another door in the room and, though it was only cracked open, I could see the partial piece of a sink. That must have been the bathroom the Doctor had mentioned.

"What do you think?" the Doctor had moved to stand next to me while I'd been observing. "Do you like it? The TARDIS tries to accommodate to what it thinks you'll be most comfortable in."

"It looks like my room…" My throat felt tight, and I wasn't sure why. It was _my_ room, just in a different color scheme. Was this what my mind had wanted? "Except it's not _my_ room. It's Evangeline's." I sucked in a breath, steadying my shaking voice. "But it's fine. It's a room, and I'll get used to it. Just like I did before, I'll get used to it. Thank you, Doctor."

He looked about to say something, but thought better of it and didn't. "If you need anything, the TARDIS is telepathic. Just think that you need her to get me, and she will. You go and get some sleep. She should lead you to me when you wake up if you're feeling up to walking around." I nodded. I had the feeling that the TARDIS liked me so hopefully she wouldn't get me lost and have me fall into the pool or the core, or something worse. "Good night, Evie."

"Doctor, wait." The words came out of my mouth before I could even think about saying them. "How are you doing?" He had screwed up twice now but he was at least trying to take care of me, and he was hurting. "With Rose being gone, I mean." I didn't have to wait for him to say something to know that he was at a loss for words to explain how he felt. "Scratch that. I can tell you're falling apart."

"You can, can you?" He tried to joke, to smile, but it fell flat before it even started.

Out of instinct, I almost reached out to him, but I shuddered at the thought of touching him before my arm even moved. But I could still help, even if I couldn't give him that reassuring squeeze of the shoulder he'd given me a couple times already. "I'm familiar with falling apart. I've done it enough, and so has she. I know what falling to pieces looks like and, more importantly, I know what it feels like." When my mother left and I realized that she didn't care about me anymore, I spent months, at least, in a distant state, similar to what I thought the Doctor was going through. "It feels like nothing's even real, like it's all just some bad dream that you keep thinking you'll wake from and then she'll be standing there again. And you feel like you can't breathe, all the time, because the loss is too much and it makes you want to shut down and never get back up again. But you can't shut down because there are other people who need you, like the universe or a father who's even more incapable of dealing with it than you are because she vowed to be there forever and she lied… It feels like someone took your heart straight out of your chest and broke it in half, and half, and fucking half again and left it in the floor in front of you, then laughed and walked away. So, yes, Doctor, I can see that you're falling apart. It's something that I am _very_ good at." I blew air up into my face, pretending to blow a piece of hair out of my face when really I was trying to dry the eyes that felt like pouring out without being obvious. Then I sighed, and he was looking at me like I'd just cracked some sort of code he couldn't figure out. "The worst part is not getting to say goodbye. There's no way you can say goodbye to Rose?" I knew that on the show he didn't have anyone to suggest it to him. But I had no way of knowing exactly how long it had taken him on the show to figure out how to talk to her, and he'd been so obsessed with helping me that I was starting to worry he might never come up with the idea.

He shook his head, his smile gone and his eyes miserable. "Rose is gone. The Void sealed itself off. There's no way to access that parallel world she's in now."

I feigned a thoughtful look. "Are you sure? Have you tried, Doctor? Don't give up before you even try because you might never forgive yourself. I didn't, still haven't. I was just thinking that maybe there might still be a hole open. Somewhere. I mean, for the Cybermen showed up all over the world, right? They couldn't have done that through just the one breech, right? It doesn't make sense, logically." I was trying so hard to look like this was something I'd just come up with, and not something that I knew for fact. "Maybe the Void didn't all slam shut at once."

His eyes lit up like I had just told him he was going to live for another three months. He leaned forward, looking like he was going to hug me, and then remembered what I had asked and backed up. His grin was back. "Evangeline Blackstone, you are brilliant! Have a good nap!" Without another word, he turned and ran back down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.

He was off to go talk to Rose, which meant I was free to take a shower and a long sleep. I walked into the room, closing the door behind me, and wasted no time in heading to the bathroom. The shower was large, and towels were already hung on the wall for me. I started the water, letting it run as hot as my hand could possibly stand, and peeled the weird hospital gown off my body. I sucked in a breath as I stepped into the shower, the water scalding my skin briefly. After a few seconds, my body acclimated and it felt like the best thing in the entire world. It had been too long since I'd had a good shower. I didn't have a clock or a watch, or even a phone, so I have no idea how long I stood there, letting the water run over my head and down my body. Eventually, I turned, finding body wash and shampoo and conditioner sitting on a shelf on the wall. As I cleansed, I noticed that the mending patches or whatever he had called them were holding their place. They must have been water resistant. I just hoped that the gel was cleaning the skin underneath the patches since I couldn't get to it now.

After what felt like an hour, I forced myself out of the shower, grabbing a towel off the wall and patting myself dry. I wrapped it around myself and stood in front of the sink, looking into the mirror. Somehow, the mirror had managed to stay clear, even though the shower had steamed up the bathroom pretty thoroughly. The second I looked at myself, I was appalled. Who was this girl I was looking at? She wasn't me. This girl was as thin as a stick, her face tiny and shrunken in. Her hair was chest length now and the once electric blue hair was now so faded out that it was more of a pastel blue, and her roots were so long they reached her ears. Her skin reminded me of a zombie. How had I gotten so bad? Fucking Torchwood. I didn't even bother looking at my tattoos, of which the ones on my wrists were covered by patches, because they would probably look terrible on my sallow skin.

I couldn't look at the zombie that was me anymore. I was out of there; I could recuperate now. I would get back to what I used to look like. I left the bathroom, shivering slightly as my damp skin met the small temperature change in the bedroom. "Pajamas…" I mumbled to myself, wandering to the closet. I didn't see my bags, which meant the Doctor had them in the console room still, unless he had forgotten them in the alley like he'd forgotten me. I opened the closet door, hoping fiercely that there would be something for me to wear while I slept inside. I was greeted by an entire row of pajamas on hangers, of different styles and colors. I smiled, relieved. "Thank you, you wonderful TARDIS." A hum buzzed through my brain in response, although I had no idea what it said or meant. I could assume it was a "You're welcome" but I hoped I would get better at reading the TARDIS as time went on.

I picked out a pair of striped black pajama pants and a blue t-shirt, although the shirt ended up being a little short on me so that my stomach hung out somewhat. But I was so tired that I didn't care. I pulled back the comforter and sheets on the bed and, the second my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

When I woke up, I found the room in complete darkness. Had the TARDIS turned off the lights while I was asleep? A hum told me she had, and I mentally thanked her. I briefly wondered how long I'd been sleeping, then decided I didn't care. If there had been an emergency, the Doctor would have found me, maybe. At the very least, hopefully the TARDIS would have woken me. I was feeling a little groggy and definitely could use another week's worth of sleep, but I felt a million times better than I had before so that was an accomplishment. There was a nightstand next to the head of the bed. As I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I noticed a strange box sitting on the nightstand that hadn't been there when I fell asleep.

I picked it up, popping the top off of it. Inside were about a dozen little white sticks. They didn't smell like anything. I slid one out and held it in my fingers. It was about the size of a… Were these cigarettes? I looked up at the ceiling, addressing the TARDIS. Or should I be looking at the wall? I supposed the TARDIS was everywhere, technically, so it didn't quite matter. "The Doctor won't be happy if he finds out you're feeding my addiction." Another hum, one that reminded me of a shrug.

They didn't look like regular cigarettes, so they must have been some futuristic kind. I put the one I was holding to my mouth before I remembered I didn't have a light for it. The moment it touched my lips, though, the end of it ignited, glowing like a tiny candle. No smoke came from that end and when I pulled it away there was none for me to blow out either. There was no cigarette smell that so many people couldn't stand, which meant there was no way for the Doctor to tell I'd been smoking on his ship. It was different from what I was used to, but it provided the same feeling and was relaxing all the same. I continued to smoke until the light on the end went dark, signaling the death of the cigarette. I wasn't sure if I could just throw these out so I decided to stick it back into the box and figure it out later.

My stomach growled, reminding me of how long it had been since I'd had real food and not the crap that Torchwood called food. Mostly they'd fed me mush. I would have killed for a good hamburger. I placed the box back on the nightstand and stood. I had slippers in my duffel bag but that was still nowhere to be found. If I was lucky, the Doctor had left it in the console room. I had been bare foot for a month; another ten minutes wouldn't kill me.

The hallway outside my bedroom was bright. I turned right after a brief moment of debate on which way to go and started walking. How did I find my way to the console room? I remembered the Doctor had said the TARDIS would help me out, and she had been kind to me so far. "Hello, you big beautiful machine, could you please help me find the Doctor?" I didn't receive a response from her, but I trusted her to guide me.

After a few short hallways, I heard voices. I recognized the Doctor's voice going "What?"

"Where am I?"

A grin broke out on my face and I started to jog towards the room. I knew that voice. That was Donna's obnoxious shout. I was going to meet Donna!

"What?"

"What the hell is this place?"

I made it to the doorway into the console room, stopping a few feet before it. I took a deep breath and cleared the grin off my face, doing my best to look confused. A normal person wouldn't know who Donna is, so I couldn't either. Trying to quell the excitement buzzing through me, I stepped through the doorway, into the Doctor's and Donna's conversation.

This would be my first _real_ adventure.

* * *

><p>That turned out a bit longer than I had planned. I was only meaning for this to be like a 6 page chapter but it turned into twice that. Whatever. Again, excuse anything that might be wrong, TARDIS-wise, because I never saw Classic Who so I'm making up anything that happens on the TARDIS up as I go because I don't have anything to base this off of. My medical stuff and how rooms work and things like that are probably completely wrong. Don't hate me! See you guys next time!<p> 


	7. 7: Runaway Evie

We're at chapter 7 already! Ohmigosh this is amazing. To be honest, this is the first fic I've written in a long time that's gotten this far. And I'm still so excited to write this that this is honestly the most amazing thing to me. I love this story, and you guys have been so amazing with your support. I realize I've used the word amazing like five times now. It took me a few days to plan out the episode, and then school is slowly killing me. The semester just started and we've had three snow days but the classes are intense and I can't Sparknote basically any of the texts for my Lit classes this semester so I have a massive amount of reading I have to do. So I'm sorry for delays in my update schedule, but like I've said, I post my update schedule on my profile so if you're curious, check it out. Evie is getting nearer to wearing real clothes (I wasn't going to show you what her pajamas looked like) so there will be times when I post pictures of her clothing, which will also be on my profile. This chapter starts the Runaway Bride episode, and I'm splitting it into two chapters and I'm so excited! Then we'll do a TARDIS tour (which should be shortish, even though I always say that and they always turn out to be long so…) and then we jump into Martha! I feel like we've gotten really far really fast and I love it. Anyway, thanks to everyone who added this to their favorite or follow list! And special thanks to CalicoKitty402, yellowroseofthenw, CaptainTheoLatch, LittleLizzieZentara, MinecraftLover00, Seralina, Mad Girl with a Keyboard, and Unknown Girl for reviewing!

**CaptainTheoLatch:** Props to you for coming up with the stumping questions. On the topic of the TARDIS, my mindset was that the TARDIS is a machine, of course, but she's also sentient. She can look at Evie with a mind that isn't just machines, isn't just reading energy waves coming off of Evie and other biological things, so she sees Evie as a person, and not just a bunch of readings like a regular machine. The TARDIS can see Evie like a person can, like the Doctor can, but the TARDIS also knows that there's something wrong with Evie because she can't read her like a normal machine. Does that make sense? It's hard for me to explain without giving spoilers away. As for your other question, honestly, I don't have all the answers, only because I'm not mechanically inclined and I have no idea how most machines work. I can make the most logical assumption based off my limited knowledge, though, and here's what I think: a camera can see Evie because she's visible to the naked eye. She has form, she's corporeal, and a camera would see her like a person does. And honestly, I'm going to be honest, I didn't really think of motion sensors when I made her so I'm struggling with an answer there. I'm not perfect :P I haven't the faintest idea how Evie would work with a motion sensor. I don't think it will ever come up in this story and if it does, I'll work on it. But here's my best guess. Evie technically isn't there. You can see her and feel her, but she doesn't exist so, from a logical and mechanical perspective, she isn't there. She has no weight, no mass, no energy that she's giving off, so a motion sensor won't see her because she isn't there. I could be wrong and I'm sorry that I don't have a better answer, but machines confuse me. I hope that helped!

**Seralina:** Your review made me so happy! I actually squealed. Your excitement was so contagious! Thank you for reviewing! I WILL DO MY BEST TO KEEP YOUR HEART AND SOUL BEATING MY FRIEND!

**Mad Girl with a Keyboard:** That's my bad, I fail :P They were nanites that turned into nanogenes and I had the wrong word stuck in my head. I'll have to change that. Thank you for mentioning that! And it's not so much that Evie doesn't respect the Doctor, she respects him very much actually, but you have to remember what she's endured. She died, and then she had to adjust to a new world and to being a whole new person (because even though she looks the same, minus the hair, Evangeline is an entirely different person from who Felicity was) and then she was kidnapped and tortured and traumatized by Torchwood. And then the Doctor, the man that she trusted to save her and to never ever do anything to hurt her or traumatize her further, scared her out of her mind. He didn't do it on purpose and you and I know the Doctor was only trying to help her and figure her out, but he performed tests on her while she was unconscious. Without her consent, without asking her. To Evie, after what she went through at Torchwood, the fact that he did it without telling her is the worst thing. She needs to feel like she's in control, and he took that from her, as innocently as he might have done it. She acted like a child and it is illogical for her to blame the Doctor like that, and it will continue to show in this chapter, but she was literally just being stabbed and prodded and tortured two days ago and she's going to need some time to normalize from that. So feel free to hate her for the way she's acting, it's sort of been designed that way, but I would have to say she's more traumatized than delusional. But I'm glad you, and others, are getting so into this story and into Evie to start bringing up these points.

Chapter 7: Runaway Evie

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><p>"<em>We can easily forgive who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."<em>

_Plato_

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><p>It was Donna. It was real, live, an actual person Donna. I struggled hard against the grin that wanted to overcome my face. She was beautiful and brilliant and she was standing in the TARDIS console room, looking between the Doctor and me, bewildered and frustrated out of her mind. Even better than the look on her face was the one on the Doctor's, who hadn't noticed me yet. His mouth was hanging open and he kept glancing at the console in disbelief. "You can't do that. I wasn't… We're in flight! That is… That is physically impossible! How did…?"<p>

"Tell me where I am," Donna ordered, staring at him with as much of a threatening look as she could manage. She stomped her foot and pointed her finger, emphasizing her next order. "I demand you tell me right now. Where am I?"

The Doctor eyes weren't blinking, which was kind of creepy, as he continued to stare at her. It wasn't the same look always gave me, like he couldn't figure me out, but one clearly said this couldn't be happening. "Inside the TARDIS."

"The what?"

"The TARDIS!"

"The what?"

"You're inside the TARDIS!" It took everything I had not to laugh as I tried to explain. The Doctor was too astonished to properly tell her what was going on. "Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"That's not even a proper word!" she practically yelled, turning on me now. "You're just saying things!"

"Doctor, how is she here?" I asked the Time Lord who was still staring at his console like it had done a trick without his permission. "Did you recruit another TARDIS member while I was sleep and not tell me about it?"

"Did you kidnap her too, eh, String Bean?" Donna was asking now. Kidnap? She thought the Doctor had kidnapped me along with her. Of course she would.

"Woah, woah, woah, Do-" I stopped myself before I could say Donna. That would definitely raise a red flag if I knew her name before she told us. "Ginger, he doesn't kidnap people. That's Torchwood's job. _He_ just leaves them behind and comes back for them six hours later."

"Oy! One angry woman at a time!" After giving me an exasperated face, he looked toward Donna, trying to remain calm. "How did you get in here?"

"Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me! And her!"

"For the last time, he didn't kidnap me! Or you!"

She ignored me. "Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys? Oh my God, she's finally got me back!"

The Doctor's calm only lasted a few seconds before it was immediately replaced with confusion once more. "Who the hell is Nerys?"

"_Obviously_ her arch enemy. Nerys the nemesis, it sort of has a ring to it." Donna nodded, appearing happy that at least one person in this room was somewhat sane. "I had one of those once. Well, just a few months ago really, you know, before the whole car thing happened. Her name was Burnadette. Burnadette the Bitch I called her. She _was_ my friend, and then she went and stole my boyfriend. Granted, I didn't like him much anyway. He was kind of a giant ass hat so really she did me a favor. But still, it's the principle of the thing."

"Oh God, I'm surrounded by a bunch of loons. What did I do to deserve this?" And she thought I was crazy again. Note to self, sometimes rambling isn't the best idea.

The Doctor, seemingly having just noticed the long white dress Donna was wearing, looked her up and down. "What're you dressed like that for?"

"Don't be stupid, Doctor," I said as I smacked him in the arm.

"I'm going ten-pin bowling," Donna said, feigning kindness before scowling and raising her voice probably about as loud as she could get it. Why did she specify ten-pin bowling? Wasn't that just called bowling? Did the English have a different kind of bowling? I made a mental note to ask the Doctor about that later. Of course, knowing him, he would probably tell me about the 800-pin noodle bowling that they had on planet Thingamajig or something. No, Evie, put that grin away before someone notices. "Why do you think, dumbo? I was halfway up the aisle!" She advanced on him slowly as he backed away, fleeing from her around the console as he mashed buttons frantically. "I've been waiting all my life for this! I was just seconds away, and then you… I don't know. You… Drugged me or something!"

"I haven't done anything!" I wasn't sure what exactly he was doing with the TARDIS controls but whatever it was, he was trying very hard to do it.

"It's true," I said, defending him with a snort. "He never does anything."

Donna continued to stomp towards him. "We're having the police on you." I had always thought that was a weird way to phrase that. "Me and my husband, as soon as he is my husband, we're gonna sue the living backside off of you!" She happened to look behind him, noticing the TARDIS doors, and began storming her way over to them.

I waited for the Doctor to yell at her to stop like he was supposed to, but he didn't notice Donna attempting to leave. He was too busy staring at me with his mouth hanging open in a slightly offended fashion. "What do you mean I don't do anything? I do plenty of things! You don't know me well enough to make that kind of statement!"

"You're such a child, Doctor! Did I bruise your ego?" For the love of… He wasn't going to stop Donna. And I couldn't depend on the episode going the same way. I wouldn't be the reason Donna died. "Stop it, Don… Stop!" Fucking hell, I had to stop using people's names before they told them to me!

As Donna reached the doors and grabbed the handles to pull them open, I sprinted down the ramp at her. I managed to reach her just as she flung the doors open, but she moved no further. Neither did I.

We were floating in space. Through the TARDIS doors I could see the never ending expansion of black sky that stretched on all around us. Little white flecks, stars, dotted it like speckles on robin eggs, twinkling with their dying light. In front of us was… I wasn't even sure. It could have been a star or a nebula or a hole, or some other fancy space word that I couldn't find in my head at the moment. But it was beautiful. It was majestic with purples, pinks, and whites all swirling into each other. It was breathtaking. I had never seen space before. That should be obvious since I was a lame high school girl who spent way too much time playing video games and not enough time being an astronaut, because clearly those guys knew something I hadn't. And that was that, once you saw space, you would never want to peel your eyes away from it. I had seen this on the show, but seeing and _seeing_ were two completely different things. They were miles, light years, away from each other. I was _seeing_ space, and I would have happily lost myself in it.

"You're in space." The Doctor's voice penetrated my thoughts, coming from right behind me. He was talking more to Donna than me, and I was okay with that. I didn't want to be pulled from this sight just yet. "Outer space." Was there any other kind? "This is my… spaceship. It's called the TARDIS."

I glanced up at him when he said that and couldn't help the weird noise, somewhere behind a snort and a chuckle, that came out of my mouth. He grimaced with his entire being, clearly hating being reduced to calling his TARDIS, the essence of his entire life, a _spaceship_. Then I remembered why I was even standing there, not that I was complaining a single bit, and smacked him in the arm again. "What the hell is wrong with you, Doctor? A strange woman on your ship—no offense, Ginger—and you're just going to let her waltz over and fall the fuck out of your TARDIS? She could have very well just walked right off your ship and into space and then you'd have a floating dead bride on your hands and I'm _not_ cleaning that up."

Donna looked at us, astonishment with a hint of terror evident on her amazing face. "How am I breathing?" Ah, yes, the most important question a person could ask after finding out they're in space.

"There's an oxygen field around the TARDIS protecting us."

I instantly knew I'd made a mistake when the Doctor started to give me that look I was quickly becoming accustomed to, the one like I was a bazillion piece puzzle and he was having trouble figuring out exactly where the pieces went to finish the picture. "How did you know that? I haven't explained any of that to you yet."

I'd slipped up. No, correction, I'd _fucked_ up. Big time. But I was clever, I could play this off. "Well, obviously… Obviously…," I said slowly, hoping it wasn't too obvious that I was fumbling for an idea. Then an episode of the Simpsons I had watched when I was like ten or so popped into my head. I doubted it was accurate but it could work. "Obviously, Doctor Man, our heads haven't exploded yet. As soon as Bridezilla here opened the doors the air should have been sucked out and we would have suffocated and then our heads would have popped like little tiny pimples. And the doors are freaking wooden so it's not like they were airtight to begin with. That's right! I took the classes of science. I know stuff. Bam." I waved my hands around like I was making a point and tried to look like I was proud of myself. Which I was for even having come up with something plausible on the spot like that.

He raised an eye brow at me for a second, most likely debating whether or not I was telling the truth, and then he smiled. "You're right. Good job. Although our heads wouldn't actually explode." I felt a breath rush out of me at his acceptance. Inside, however, I was screaming at myself. I had to be more careful. If I kept slipping up like that, sooner or later he was going to find out I was lying to him, and I'd bet it would be sooner.

"You two are bizarre." Donna still had an astonished look upon her face, and I was starting to wonder if it would ever go away. "Who are you?"

I raised my hand and waved enthusiastically at her, beaming. I still couldn't believe I was meeting Donna Noble. Donna's season was my favorite, and she was my favorite, and this was actually happening. "I'm Evie! Well, Evangeline, _technically_, but don't call me that."

"And I'm the Doctor. You?"

I was always surprised when Donna didn't ask him the typical "Doctor Who?" kind of question. Instead she just shrugged. "Donna."

The Doctor rolled his eyes up and down her, sort of suspicious. "Human?"

"Yeah," Donna said at first, with an obvious sort of tone. Then she must have realized that was a bizarre question. "Is that optional?"

"Well, it is for me."

"Why would a human have a spaceship?" I suddenly thought to ask. Donna's question had always made sense to me before, but now I found myself wondering why she would have thought a human was flying around in space.

Donna looked at him, glancing back at the inside of the TARDIS and at the area around the Doctor, trying to be surprised but there didn't seem to be any room inside her for more shock. "You're an alien," she stated matter-of-factly.

I couldn't help but feel bad for her. One second she was walking down the aisle towards the guy she believed was the man of her dreams, and the next second she's in some weird alien spaceship with an alien. "All men are aliens, technically." I earned a small laugh out of her. "Don't worry, Donna, I'm human so at least you're not alone."

She looked slightly grateful for that, and then nodded towards the great expanse of space in front of us. "It's freezing with these doors open."

The Doctor grabbed both of the doors and closed them. Then, immediately turning around, he ran back up to the console to mess with more buttons. "But I don't understand it, and I understand everything. This—This can't happen."

"Not everything, Doc," I said with a sigh as I moved up the ramp. I stood away from the console, sure that he would run into me with the way he was moving around it. "You don't understand me."

He stopped only for a second to remark. "No, no, I understand everything, Evie. Including that some things that can't happen do happen, like you and like this. I might not know _how_ it happened but I understand that it did happen."

Because that was _totally_ the same thing as understanding everything. He had gone back to fiddling with the console so I decided not to press it. While he fiddled and rambled, I decided to take a look around the console room for the first time. I'd been unconscious when he had brought me through it. It was every bit as amazing as I'd thought it would be. The coral beams stretched above me up to the ceiling, my favorite part of Ten's TARDIS. It was mind boggling and surreal, so much like a million dreams I'd had before, and I quickly pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Nothing happened, so this must still be real life. I couldn't say I was complaining. As I scanned my eyes around the room, I noticed something that the Doctor must have placed off to the side after he'd brought me in. My bags! My guitar case was leaning against the railing, with the duffel bag in front of it. I quickly scurried over to them and unzipped the duffel. "Slippers, slippers, slippers… Slippers!" I mumbled to myself until I found the pale blue pair of bunny slippers, complete with semi-floppy rabbit ears and black whiskers, I'd stuffed in there when I had left Regina's. I quickly slid them on and stood back up, happily triumphant in the fact that this was the first time in a month I'd gotten to wear shoes.

"It must be—Impossible." The Doctor's voice drew me back to attention and I looked over just as the Doctor reached down into a tool belt looking thing hanging off the console. He pulled out a doohickey that reminded me of something an eye doctor would use. Holding the tool up to Donna's eye, he put himself in her face, looking back and forth between both of her eyeballs, and began rambling off a bunch of things he thought could be wrong with her.

As I watched him, I got that familiar sinking feeling in my stomach, the one that showed up whenever Ed and Toupee would drag me out of my cell for whatever torture experiment they had planned for me that day. For a split second I was there again, strapped into that chair and waiting, trembling, as they discussed my fate for the millionth time. They liked to talk about what they had planned in front of me to scare me. And it worked. Then I blinked and I was back in the TARDIS, but that feeling like I'd just eaten something rotten was still squirming around inside me. There he was again, scanning somebody without a spare second to think about how they might feel about it. I felt myself take a step back.

As he scanned her and rambled off more words, Donna's face grew steadily more irritated. Finally, she'd had enough and she raised her hand, smacking him across the face. He looked at her, appalled and having no sense of what he'd done wrong. "What was that for?"

"Get me to the church!" Donna yelled so loud I could almost feel the shudder under my feet.

"Right! Fine! I don't want you here anyway." He returned to pushing buttons and pulling levers, glancing at me only briefly. He didn't notice anything was wrong, and I don't think I could have explained what was wrong even if he had. "Where is this wedding?"

Donna stormed after him as he moved, wanting to make sure he heard every word so he couldn't screw up. "Saint Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System." I was watching Donna as she paced, so I noticed when her eyes fell on the purple jacket, Rose's jacket, that still hung draped over the railing. "I knew it. Acting all innocent."

I'd always hated this part. The Doctor didn't need the reminder that he'd just lost Rose. I wasn't sure if I should stop her or if this part was necessary or what but I found myself following after her. "Donna, don't."

She ignored me, unsurprisingly, and grabbed the jacket off the railing, walking to the Doctor's side while she waved it at him. "I'm not the first, am I?" The Doctor looked up from his buttons, his eyebrow raised in a "What the hell is this woman going on about now" look, but his eyes ran cold as soon as he noticed the piece of clothing in her hand. "Evie and I aren't the first. How many women have you abducted?"

"That's my friends." The pain on his face was obvious to everyone but Donna. Well, I should say it was obvious to me because I was the only other person in the room.

"Where is she then?" Donna was relentless. This was the only part of her I didn't really like. When she was mad, she didn't notice a lot else. It was even harder to watch in person. "Popped out for a spacewalk?"

"She's gone."

"Gone _where_?"

"Okay, nope, that's enough." I raised my voice loud enough to gain Donna's attention and I placed myself off to their side, being that there wasn't enough room for me to stand in front of her. "Donna, I like you. I really, really do. But you need to back the fuck up right now. The Doctor did _not_ kidnap you. He didn't kidnap me either. I might have been unconscious when he brought me onto the ship but that doesn't make him a kidnapper. Okay, well, it would have if I hadn't agreed to coming onto the ship before that, but I did so it doesn't. But he's just as confused as you are so you need to stop because if you had eyes you could see that he doesn't want to think about it. He lost her, end of story."

I could feel the Doctor's eyes on the back of my head as Donna's shifted back and forth between the two of us. "Well, you can hurry up and lose me!" She turned and stomped over to the driver's seat that no one ever sat in, tossing the shirt back onto the railing. I'd forgotten: Donna rarely apologizes. Her not pressing the issue was the best I would get.

"Thank you," the Doctor said with a small smile as I turned around to face him.

I shrugged. "Eh, no big deal. You can just repay me with food after we get back."

"After we get back? From where?" he asked as he returned to fiddling with controls.

I could have smacked myself for saying things without thinking again. But I didn't, because that probably would have looked weird to the Doctor. "Oh, uh, nowhere. I mean, after we drop Donna off at her church. You know, the one in the solar system." He didn't ask any more questions so I had managed to dodge another bullet. But I _had_ to be more careful with what I said. In my head, I felt the TARDIS buzz, but I wasn't sure what she was trying to say. I might not have been able to understand her just yet, but I could tell that something was wrong with her. Her voice, even though it was just a weird humming feeling in my mind, sounded frail and droopy. I had a feeling it was all the huon particles that Donna brought with her. I made sure to keep that knowledge to myself before I could blab any other information that made me sound shady. "So, to Chiswick?"

"To Chiswick!"

~X~

The ride to Chiswick, or not Chiswick, was short but bumpy. My first trip in the TARDIS and I'd been promptly thrown to the floor, nearly landing on my face. Granted, I could only blame myself. I was a Whovian and I had forgotten the most important rule of TARDIS travel: Hang on to something. Of course, I'd given the Doctor a dirty glare afterwards and he'd just looked sheepish. Donna had been fine, since she'd already been sitting on the driver's seat and had something to hold onto. Luckily, I hadn't injured anything new.

As soon as the Doctor said we hand landed and we were back on Earth, Donna hightailed it for the doors. I followed her out once I'd checked to make sure I wasn't bleeding. "I said, Saint Mary's," Donna began to complain once she saw the buildings in front of us. I didn't know where we were, but she apparently did and she knew that this wasn't the church she wanted. "What sort of Martian are you?" I wanted to tell her he wasn't a Martian, but that would have been breaking the "Don't let on that you know anything" rule so I kept my mouth shut. Score one for me. "Where's this?"

The Doctor was too busy rubbing the side of his TARDIS as he looked at it in concern to listen to her. "Something's wrong with her. I don't know. It's like she's…" He suddenly bolted inside back to the console. "Recalibrating!"

Donna turned to look at him, and caught side of the TARDIS from the outside. The Doctor yelled some questions at her from inside but it was her turn to ignore him now. I listened vaguely, while watching Donna slowly move around the TARDIS, examining the whole bigger on the inside thing aspect of it. Then something the Doctor said caught my attention. "Any sort of alien contacts? I can't let you go wandering off in case you're dangerous. I mean, have you…"

I kept my eyes on Donna but that statement burned a hole into my mind. If he was only following Donna because she might be dangerous, what did that mean for me? The Doctor had no idea what was going on with me, why I didn't exist. Did that mean I could be dangerous? Worse yet, did that mean the Doctor had only asked me to come with him because he thought I might be? Had he even wanted me to join him? He had left me at Torchwood after all… Maybe he had only come back for me because he realized he couldn't leave me alone. No, that couldn't be it. The Doctor wouldn't do that and not tell me. I tried to brush the thought from my mind, but it wouldn't disappear. What if it was true? I didn't want to be anyone's consolation prize, like "Hey, I have to ask you to come with me because you could blow up and destroy the world, but you're awesome so it works out!" I didn't want that.

Donna had made it back to the front of the TARDIS and the look on her face screamed terror and bewilderment. She poked her head back in as the Doctor continued to talk, though all I could hear in my head was what he had said about being dangerous, as if to check if she had been imagining how large the TARDIS had actually been. Confirming that she had not imagined it, she backed out of the TARDIS again. Her hands flew to her mouth, stifling the scream she surely wanted to let out, and she turned around to flee from the alien technology.

"Donna, wait!" I called after her at the same time as the Doctor yelled her name and ran out of the TARDIS.

As soon as he'd closed the doors behind him—I knew he'd once said the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get in, but I wasn't sure that applied if he left the doors wide open for intruders—he looked at me with a sigh, and grabbed my hand, starting to pull me along with him after Donna. The second he placed my hand in his, pinpricks erupted out all over my skin and I began to shake. Images of knives and syringes flashed in my eyes. Toupee's laugh as he dug the knife into my skin filled my ears. I whimpered, ripping my arm away from him and recoiling, and clapped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the memories out. "Get out, get out, get out!" My breaths came in wheezes, steadying out as the terror left my head. I dared to open my eyes, seeing nothing but the Doctor watching me with a guilt stricken look upon his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but then I was yelling. "_You promised_, Doctor! You _promised_ you wouldn't touch me!"

"Evie—Evie, I'm so sorry-"

"No!" I couldn't stand to hear him, and I bolted in the direction Donna had gone. How could he? It was only a little while ago that I had asked him _not_ to touch me. I couldn't bear it right now. Everything,_ everything_, reminded me of that place and it made me sick. My stomach flipped itself inside of me, threatening to bring up whatever bile was left in it, but I gulped, trying to take deep breaths. I was still wheezing some. _How could he_? I tried to reason: the Doctor probably hadn't meant it. He probably hadn't meant anything by it. But he'd broken the promise he'd made me that he wouldn't touch me unless it was life or death. He'd forgotten. It had slipped his mind, even though he'd promised only just earlier. How could I trust him not do forget again?

I slowed to a walk as I neared Donna, trying to cover my wheezing as something caused by running after her. The Doctor wasn't far behind me. "Evie," he said softly, but I ignored him. He took Donna's other side, walking in line with the two of us. He had apparently decided he didn't have time to deal with me because he started talking to Donna.

"Leave me alone. I just want to get married," the bride said, about as freaked out as I was but for a completely different reason.

He was looking at her with sympathy, but he wasn't looking at me at all. "Come back to the TARDIS."

Donna just shook her head. No amount of asking was going to get her to go back. "No way. That box is too… weird."

"It's bigger on the inside. That's all." The Doctor shrugged like this was a common thing.

"Because that's reassuring," I snorted, earning a pointed look from him finally. I sent him back a glare. My hands were still trembling, and I couldn't get them to stop.

Donna lifted her left hand from holding her dress skirt to look at her watch. "Ten past 3:00. I'm gonna miss it."

And then the Doctor said the line I recognized from the show, but that pissed me off and made me want to smack him. "Why don't you phone them, tell them where you are."

"How do I do that?"

"Haven't you got a mobile?"

"Are you kidding me?" I hadn't been planning on saying anything but sometimes he could just be so thick. I stopped short alongside Donna, who was staring at him like he'd grown four heads. "Does she look like she has a cell phone? No, she doesn't have a mobile. She's in a goddamn wedding dress, Doctor, she doesn't have pockets. Wedding dresses with pockets weren't very popular back in 2007."

Donna was staring at me now. "Wait a minute, what the hell year are you from if you're saying 'back' in 2007? Are you an alien, like him? And what's got your knickers all in a bunch?"

"I'm not an alien, Donna, I'm just from the future. Well, not the future. It's hard to explain! I'm from 2014." Then I gestured at the Doctor, feeling my nose scrunch up in annoyance. "When you ask someone to do something, or _not_ to do something in this case, you're supposed to be able to trust them not to do the thing you asked them not to do!"

"I'm sorry, Evangeline, but this is not the time," the Doctor's voice grew low, warning me that there were more important things to deal with than me right now.

"Don't freaking call me that," I snarled, warning back.

Donna was caught between the two of us, but it seemed like a light bulb went off over her head. "Aha! You _did_ kidnap her!"

I could have face palmed. That was not what I had been expecting her to say, at all. "No, Donna, just… No. He didn't kidnap me. We should all just drop this." I tried to put some finality into the tone of my voice, telling them that if either of them mentioned it in the next sentence they spoke I would smack them. "Donna doesn't have pockets, so she has no cell phone. I _highly_ doubt you have a cell phone, Doctor. And I'm pretty sure Torchwood ate mine, or dissected it, or something."

"What kind of bride has pockets?" Donna just could not let go of the whole pockets thing. "When I went to my fitting at Chez Alison, the one thing I forgot to say was 'give me pockets'!"

She practically bellowed the last part, causing the Doctor to cringe. "This man you're marrying, what's his name?"

The anger on her face melted away to be replaced with a soft smile and pure happiness. "Lance." Oh, Donna. My heart ached a little at the dreamy look on her face when she thought of the man she was supposed to marry. She thought of him as nothing short of amazing, it was clear. In truth, it reminded me somewhat of the way my parents had once looked at each other, before my mother became a bitch and left us behind. But they'd been happy once, and they used to look at each other like they were the whole world. That's what Donna thought of Lance, and I couldn't even tell her how big of a scumbag he was. She was going to get her heart broken. I knew that feeling well, and there was nothing I could do to stop it or to help her.

Of course, the Doctor had no idea about any of it yet. "Gotta like Lance."

The loving look Donna changed with a terrifying abruptness. "Oi! No stupid Martian is going to stop me from getting married! To hell with you!"

She stomped off again, leaving me standing there with the Doctor. He stuttered feebly, "I'm… I'm not… I'm not… I'm not from Mars."

"Let it go, Doctor," I said with distaste, following after Donna without looking at him.

I ran after Donna until we came to a busy street, cars speeding all over the place. "Taxi!" she was yelling, to no avail. For several minutes the Doctor and I, without acknowledging each other, pointed out taxis but not a single one of them would stop for us. I was kind of surprised, as we wandered back and forth on the sidewalk waving our arms to gain attention, that none of the cabs would stop for us. In New York, I had always been able to snag one, even on busy days. But apparently they were harder to get here, and I didn't know how to whistle.

"Do you have this effect on everyone," the Doctor asked after a dozen failed attempts. "Why aren't they stopping?"

"They think I'm in fancy dress," Donna sighed in realization. Someone honked a horn and yelled something about scotch. "They think I'm drunk." Two people in a blue car called out that she wasn't fooling anyone and Donna groaned in frustration. "They think I'm in drag!"

"Nice bunny slippers!" Someone else yelled out of their window as they drove by.

I frowned. I guess it didn't help either that I was still wearing pajamas, with said slippers on my feet, and my stomach hanging out. Granted, my stomach wasn't actually out because I had one of those big blue patches around it but, without the patch, my stomach would have been visible. "Don't worry, Donna, it's not just your fault."

The Doctor looked between the two of us. "Hold on, hold on." Turning around, he placed his index finger and thumb into his mouth and whistled sharply. Almost instantly, a taxi pulled over to us.

"Why the hell didn't you do that before?" I grumbled as we piled into the backseat. "Could have saved us twenty minutes."

"Saint Mary's in Chiswick, just off Hayden Road," Donna wasted no time in barking the address to the driver. "It's an emergency. I'm getting married! Just… hurry up!"

The driver glanced back at us in his rearview mirror. "That'll cost you, sweetheart. Double rates today."

Realizing the biggest dilemma facing us now, Donna patted down her sides before remembering she had no money on her. "Oh my God, have you got any money?"

She looked at me first, and I just shrugged. "Torchwood ate my wallet, too. I don't even have an ID anymore. Or a library card."

The Doctor just looked sheepish. "Um… no," he said when she turned to him. "Haven't you?"

She gestured angrily to her dress. "Pockets!"

As soon as the driver realized we all lacked in the one thing he cared about—cash—he slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the curb. Donna tried to plead with the man, "Have a heart, mister. I'm getting married and I'm late for my own wedding!", but he was an ass and wouldn't hear of not getting paid. He booted us out faster than he could even say "Get the hell out of my cab. I have paying customers to find."

"Fuck you, ya heartless bastard," I snarled at him as Donna slung some choice language at him at the same time.

I flipped the bird at him. "And that goes double for your mother!" Donna finished, nearly shaking with rage. "Oh! I'll have him. I've got his number. I'll have him! Talk about the Christmas spirit."

The Doctor, surprised, took a look around the street we'd gotten out on. He had just noticed all the Christmas decorations—snowflakes in windows, small trees scattered about, and the occasional fake Santa—and I had been too busy to remember that this had been a Christmas special. "Is it Christmas?"

My heart ached all of a sudden. It was Christmas. This would be the first Christmas I had spent without my father. When we were with my mother, she would make this big extravagant dinner and we'd sit around opening presents all day, though Dad always made us get dressed up because he liked to video tape it to watch "when he was old and grey and his kid no longer came to visit him because she was busy being fantastic." Then once all the presents had been opened, we'd watch the Jurassic Park movies, and I still couldn't tell anyone _why_ we watched them. It had become a tradition out of nowhere and it made no sense. Even after my mother left, my father and I still watch the Jurassic Park movies at night. During the day, Dad would attempt to make dinner, which wasn't great but he made good Sweet Potatoes covered in marshmallows so I couldn't complain, and we would go to my grandma's and open presents there while we saw the small amount of family that my Dad had on his side. Lexi was always involved and always spent the entire day with us because her parents didn't do much.

And I know that I hadn't actually spent any Christmases with Regina, but I had all the memories of every Christmas Evangeline had spent with her. It was weird because, as I shuffled through the memories in my head briefly, they had always watched Jurassic Park together on Christmas, too. They would cook dinner together, making messes and throwing flour at each other. They—we?—always ended up with enough food for twelve people so they would invite the neighbors they were friends with, like the old lady in the flat next door who had no children to come see her and the man on the other side of them who had lost his wife a year after Evangeline had moved in, and have dinner with them. After dinner, some of the neighbors would stick around to help clean up and then those who felt like it would watch Jurassic Park with them. It wasn't a big extravagant dinner, and there was no other family to go visit because Regina didn't speak with her family anymore after the way they had treated Evangeline, when she was their foster child, like she was insane. And I hadn't actually experienced it, but the memories made me smile.

This would be the first Christmas that I wouldn't be with my Dad, and Evangeline wouldn't be with Regina. Inside, a part of me ached in longing for both of them. The Doctor had fun Christmases, sure, like the Titanic adventure and the Christmas Carol, but it wasn't the same. I hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to my father. I wondered… Was it Christmas back home? I hoped he was doing something, and not just sitting around moping. I wish there was a way for me to go back and tell him to move on with his life. Who would Lexi spend Christmas with now? Everything was so screwed up anymore.

"Evie, don't just stand there! Come on!" My thoughts of Christmas back home slipped away with the Doctor's voice calling my name. For a split second, I briefly wondered _why_ I had chosen to stay with Evangeline's name. Then I realized that having him call me Felicity would just make me miss home even more.

Donna had spotted the red phone box up the street and had taken off towards it, the Doctor following and yelling for me to hurry up. I jogged after them, slowing when I neared the box. He hadn't noticed my lapse of nostalgia. I supposed that was good; I wouldn't have to explain it to him at least. The Doctor had just Sonicked the phone, giving Donna the dial tone. "What did you do?" she asked, astonished, as she punched a number into the keys.

"Something… Martian." It was easy to see he hated referring to himself as that. I wasn't sure if Martians were a real thing, but obviously the Time Lords had to be better. "Now, phone. I'll get money. Evie, stay here with Donna."

I nodded as he bolted off to the nearest ATM. Luckily for him, it was only about ten feet away, but there was a man in a black jacket taking forever in front of him. I remembered from the episode that the Doctor had just pointed his Sonic Screwdriver at it and it had spouted out a bucket load of money. I would have killed for that kind of ability back in Albany. There wasn't much need for money traveling around on the TARDIS, but I wondered if I could get the Doctor to poof me up some money and make me rich. I doubted it. He didn't even want me to smoke, and smoking was far less dangerous than being wealthy. Speaking of smokes… I patted my pockets. Damn it, I had left them back in my room on the TARDIS. Damn.

I stood with one hand on the phone box door, holding it open. "Oh, answer the phone!" Donna was groaning into the phone in her hand. Whoever she had been trying to call apparently hadn't answered because she dialed again. When no one picked up, she began leaving a message for her mother. "Mum, get off the phone and listen. I'm in-" She looked around at the street, and then at me, waiting for me to tell her where we were. I just shrugged and gave her my best "I don't have a clue" face. "Oh, my God. I don't know where I am. It's a street, and there's W.H. Smith." I didn't know what that was either. I was a terrible Brit. Granted, I had only been a Brit for like three months. "But it's definitely Earth." I remembered how annoyed Donna's mother had gotten at the Earth comment when she listened to the message later. In a lot of ways, Donna's mom reminded me of my own, except that Donna's hadn't abandoned her child, so that made her better than mine.

Finishing her message, Donna gave me an exasperated look, like she couldn't believe this was happening to her. I got it. I mean, she had been planning on getting married this morning and now she was going to miss it because some alien assholes had gotten in the way. She stepped out of the phone box and then, seeing a woman who looked kind enough, approached her, asking for money. In a true act of Christmas spirit, the woman pulled some cash from her wallet and handed it to Donna. I didn't miss the woman hurrying away afterwards, though. I looked back for the Doctor, finding him just getting up to the ATM and pulling his screwdriver out, as Donna tried to hail a cab.

"Taxi!" The moment Donna yelled, one pulled over. I recognized the Santa Claus, or technically a robot disguised as a Santa Claus, in the driver's seat. I opened my mouth to call for the Doctor who, looking back again, was distracted the horde of Santa's with instruments in front of him. "Oh, no you don't. I don't know what you see in him but he probably brain washed you so you're getting in this cab with me whether you like it or not. Thanks for nothing, spaceman! I'll see you in court!"

"Donna, wait-" Before I could protest, Donna grabbed my arm and shoved me into the cab before climbing in herself. Eerily, I saw the door slam shut behind Donna, although she hadn't touched it. Of course, thick headed as she was, she didn't even notice.

My throat constricted and I started to see spots in my vision, only disappearing once I ripped my arm away from her. She had touched me, and I couldn't handle it. Which meant it wasn't just the Doctor's touch that bothered me, like I'd thought, it was anyone who touched me. "Don't touch me, Donna!" I snapped, but the quaking that was trembling through my body wouldn't go away. "Fucking hell, Donna, what did you do? This is bad. This is so bad. I'm not supposed to be here." The taxi was whizzing through the streets of London and Donna had no clue. She was just staring at me. "Only you were supposed to get in the cab, Donna. This could change things."

"What the bloody hell are you going on about now?"

"Never mind, Donna!" She turned to look out the window, smiling. Stupid, she thought she was actually going to go to the church and get married. I could not wait to pop that bubble. But not yet. I didn't want her to panic for any longer than necessary.

Next to me, I tried the door handle, discreetly so Donna wouldn't notice. I wasn't surprised to find it locked. Okay, so I was locked in a killer taxi with Donna, and I wasn't supposed to be here. Options. What were my options? Well, the door didn't work so I couldn't jump out while we were still driving the streets. The driver wasn't an actual driver so he wouldn't listen. What did that leave me with? The only option I had, that I could think of, was jumping out of the cab and into the TARDIS when the Doctor got here. I really didn't like that option. Knowing my luck, and since it seemed that the universe was out to get me, I would miss the TARDIS and go splat on the road. Not my favorite plan ever.

"Hold on a minute, I said Chiswick." We must have just missed Donna's turn. "You missed the turning." Annoyed with the driver's lack of communication, she leaned closer for him to hear her. "Excuse me. We should have turned off back there! We're going the wrong way!" We were pulling on to the highway now, and just narrowly avoided slamming into the side of a minivan. He was a robot. How could it even drive? "What the hell are you doing? I'm late for my wedding!"

"Shut up, Donna!" I was tired of listening to her having a one sided argument with something that couldn't even hear her. She turned to stare at me, half offended and half freaked out. "Donna, you are so thick sometimes! And I just realized how British I sound when I say things like 'thick.' The driver isn't real, Donna." I wasn't entirely sure if I should have told her everything, or if I should have let her figure it out on her own, but I didn't really care. "He's a freaking Santa Claus robot." To prove my point, I reached forward and pulled Santa's hood down, knocking its mask off to reveal the weird bug-looking robot face behind it. "It's a robot and it actually did kidnap us, which makes that twice in a month for me now. And the doors are locked. So basically we're screwed until the Doctor comes and saves us."

Donna spent what felt like a good five minutes staring at the robot in horror. Eventually, she inhaled a deep breath and looked at me, serious. "The Doctor, do you trust him?"

"Yes, of-" I started to say that of course I trusted him, but I couldn't finish the sentence. "I'm not sure." Two days ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat, that I trusted him with my entire life. Had anyone told me that I wouldn't be sure of the answer today, I would have told them they were crazy. But then he left me behind, and he ran tests on me… I know they were minor, but that wasn't the point. He ran tests on me, without even thinking about how it would affect me after being at Torchwood for so long. Then he didn't even remember that I had asked him not to touch me, when we had talked about it only a few hours before. Could I trust a man like that, who acted without thinking? "Right now, I trust the Doctor in two ways, Donna. I trust him to, half the time at least, to put me in danger. And I trust him to get me out of it. The rest of it is still up in the air. So I trust him in that he'll get us out of this, and that's what's important right now."

She considered what I said, and nodded. "Alright then. But if you think I'm just gonna sit around and do nothing while we wait for that Martian, then you're insane." With that, she turned to her window and began searching for a way to open it. When she found none, she began pounding on it and trying to signal to people in other cars for help.

As Donna screamed for help, to no avail because the people around us were too busy avoiding our swerving vehicle to notice her, I kept my eyes focused behind us out the back windshield. "Where are you, Doctor?"

I wasn't sure how much time passed when I got my answer. Out of the sky behind us, that blue police box spiraled down, thumping first into the road and bouncing back up. Leveling out, it continued to spin as it weaved between cars down the highway towards us. It slowed to a stop about a foot away from the car we were in and continued to follow us as the robot kept driving. Donna was astonished; I don't think she'd been expecting the TARDIS to actually show up. I was relieved, and I let go of the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I had no way of knowing how screwed up things could have gotten by Donna forcing me into the cab with her. I almost wished that I was back home, watching Doctor Who on TV again and dreaming about what I'd do in an episode, because at least there was no chance of me screwing things up from my couch.

The TARDIS doors flew open, the Doctor leaning against the door frame with one leg up, keeping both doors from closing again. "Open the door!"

I scooted closer to Donna so he could see both of us. It was hard to hear him through the door and over the sound of the air rushing past the car, but I knew what he was saying. So when Donna wasn't sure what he said, I told her, "He wants us to open the door."

Donna played with the door handle again, but it still wouldn't open. "We can't! It's locked!" The Doctor pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver and aimed it at our window. At least she understood what he was doing without me having to tell her. She pulled the window down, giving him a frustrated look. "Santa's a robot!"

He ignored her; he already knew that. "Donna, Evie, open the door!"

"What for?" Jeez, Donna could be dumb. I still loved her to death, but sometimes she was so oblivious.

"You've got to jump!"

"I'm not bleedin' flip jumpin… I'm supposed to be getting married!"

Behind her, all I could do was roll my eyes. "He's not telling you to jump and get run over, Donna! Stop being a baby! I don't feel like dying!"

Suddenly Donna and I were jostled as the car sped up. I knew the Doctor would catch up, so I didn't worry as I watched his TARDIS get a little smaller. As the TARDIS rushed to join us once more, it crashed into the top of a couple cars, making their drivers look up in confusion. How was it that only the kids in the car in front of us were watching this? Why hadn't anyone called the freaking cops yet? Holy hell, London was strange. He, accidentally, rammed the TARDIS into the road again as he steadied it next to our car. Whipping out the screwdriver once more, the Doctor aimed it at the robot, shorting it out. It continued to drive, but it couldn't accelerate and take off again. "Listen to me, you've got to jump!"

"Donna, it's okay," I said, trying to reassure her. "Not to be morbid, but the only way you survive this is if you jump into the fucking TARDIS. I don't like it either. The universe keeps trying to kill me. But we have to. Otherwise we get stuck in this car with Robot Santa and I can guarantee you, you don't want to see where he's going."

"I'm not jumping on a motorway!"

"Whatever that thing is, it needs you. And whatever it needs you for, it's not good!" Isn't that what I just said? "Now, come on!"

"I'm in my wedding dress!" She just was not having it. I kept looking back at the robot, afraid it would come back to life. I just wished that Donna would open the door already. I was tempted to do it myself, but I knew that Donna wouldn't jump unless she had built up the courage to do it herself. I also didn't think she'd appreciate getting shoved, if she didn't go splat on the highway first.

"Yes, you look lovely. Come on!" I had to give props to the Doctor, though, for not getting obscenely annoyed at her.

Donna weighed her options in her head and, deciding the Doctor was the better option, hesitantly put her hands on the door handle. Letting the door swing open, she stood in the open hole, looking at the Doctor with is outstretched hands. "I can't do it!"

"Trust me!"

"Is that what you said to her, your friend, the one you lost? Did she trust you?"

I could see the pain in the Doctor's face at the mention of Rose, but he didn't let it get to him. "Yes, she did. And she is not dead. She is so alive! Now jump!"

With a deep breath and a screech, Donna leapt from the cab into the Doctor's arms. She knocked the Doctor backwards, causing the doors to close. For a second, as I stood up and moved into the open doorway, I wondered if the Doctor would just spiral away like he did in the episode.

As soon as I finished the thought, the Doctor threw the doors open again, holding his arms out for me now. "Your turn, Evie. I've got you!"

I smiled and moved to leap, but I couldn't get my feet to move. I couldn't get my legs to move. I looked at his hands, and a sinking feeling enveloped me. "I can't do it, Doctor." My voice cracked. I was scared.

Without moving his arms, he asked, "Why? Donna just did it. She's fine. You can do this, Evie. Just trust me."

And with those words, I knew what my problem was. I laughed bitterly at myself. "That's just it, Doctor. I can't… I don't trust you."

His eyes widened and he looked surprised, but he still kept his arms outstretched towards me. "Don't do this, Evie. Please. Just jump. I've got you."

I couldn't do it. I was planted, terrified, where I was standing. My knuckles were white from holding onto the door frame for dear life. "You abandoned me, Doctor, and other things. How do I know you won't do it again?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but then I heard electricity crackle behind me. I turned my head just in time to see the robot sparking back to life. "Doctor?" I looked at him, panicking. What had I done?

My mind screamed at me to jump but, before that thought could translate to my feet, the cab door swung itself shut. It slammed into me, knocking me backwards. I felt the back of my head crack against something.

I saw the Doctor's face, filled with horror, mingled in with the black spots that were quickly overtaking my vision. Then it was gone, and everything was quiet.

* * *

><p>Okay so a few notes! I got this up faster than I was expecting. I had a smaller amount of homework this week so I got most of this chapter done today, when I wasn't planning to have this done until the weekend originally. On the side of Evie being a total idiot and not trusting the Doctor and I know some of you may think that she's being totally unreasonable, don't worry it won't last forever. And lastly, before I go, I need your help! The TARDIS Tour chapter is going to be coming up after chapter 8, and I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for rooms. I have a couple so far, but I want to show off more than just like five, which is all I have. I can't promise to do the TARDIS justice but, like I said, I have never seen Classic Who so I don't know what kinds of rooms the TARDIS has, besides the one the Doctor ALWAYS mentions like the pool and the library. So if anyone has any type of room that they might like to see me slap in there, please feel free to mention it (you can put it in your review, or you can send me a PM if you don't want people to know what you're suggesting or whatever). Of course, you don't have to but it would be an awesome help and you could see something that you suggested put in. Alright, that's all for now. Til next time, my lovelies!<p> 


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